Sharyn Lock, who travelled to the Palestinian territories in August, has been forced to take refuge in Gaza City basements while bombs pound the town. She is a member of the Palestinian led International Solidarity Movement and says she went to Gaza to deliver medicine.

More than 300 people – many of them civilians – have died since hostilities began in Gaza, on Boxing Day.

Israel says it is retaliating for Hamas firing rockets into its territory.

The 35-year-old, of Hebden Bridge, said: "There are rockets falling all around us every hour of the day.

"They are going off as we speak and no-one knows where the next will land but I cannot just leave. These horrors prove we are needed now more than ever."

She said entire streets had been turned to rubble while hospitals had been inundated with the injured and dead.

"There are people everywhere with horrific injuries – missing limbs, barely alive, in urgent need of treatment – but the doctors here are being overwhelmed, they can't keep up with the destruction.

"The people are scared. They are used to this but it doesn't stop them being frightened.

"A house not far from us was bombed – there were six children in there, five died."

The former theatre worker, who lives on a narrow boat on the Rochdale Canal, said she would not leave the area. "Loss of innocent human life is a terrible thing – whether it be mine or someone else's – and that is what we are trying to stop," she said.

Jenny Lynn, chairwoman of Halifax Friends of Palestine, said: "What Sharyn is doing is so brave but so necessary. She is in our thoughts."
Miss Lock hopes to come home in spring.