INTERNATIONAL activists including a Finnish MP and a British citizen have made an unprecedented attempt to cut through the heavily fortified Gaza fence in protest against Israel’s 13-year siege of the strip.

The delegation wanted symbolically to break the blockade to “demand the international community end its silence on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

Finnish politician Anna Kontula and British national Julia Lister, along with activists from Denmark and Austria, were thwarted from carrying out the action on Monday by Israeli police, who arrested them.

The activists were taken to Ofakim prison in the south of Israel where they were interrogated and held for over 10 hours.

The group were later released with conditions banning them from entering the south of the country.

Israeli police told the activists that they had been tapping their phones, and knew the details of the action prior to Monday.

The action, the first in which solidarity activists attempted to break the siege by land, followed multiple successful and failed attempts by the Freedom Flotilla movement to break the naval siege on Gaza by sending dozens of boats over 10 years.

Ms Lister, who is a teacher and photographer from London, said that by participating in the action she hoped the British public would “wake up” to the situation in Gaza.

She said: “I would like to ask the British public to join us in demanding an end to the 13-year blockade of the Gaza strip and the countless routine violations of international law and basic human rights perpetrated by the Israeli government and its occupying forces.”

The 25-year-old has been an advocate for Palestinian rights for many years, volunteering twice in the West Bank.

Israel has enforced a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007. Over this time conditions in the territory, which is home to two million people, have rapidly deteriorated.

In 2012, the UN warned that by 2020 Gaza would be uninhabitable. This prediction has more or less come to fruition with Gazans facing severe water, fuel, power and medicine shortages as a direct result of the siege.

Despite the UN’s critical warning, little meaningful action has been taken by the international community to pressure Israel to lift the siege.

Ms Kontula, who is a member of Finland’s Left Alliance party, and has campaigned to end the arms trade between Finland and Israel said Gaza is “like a prison" .

She added: “Except that in my country prisoners have more food and better health care than the children in Gaza — and of course they can get out some day.”

Gazan activist and journalist Ahmed Abu Artema said he welcomed the delegation’s attempt to break the siege.

He said: “Gaza needs the efforts of all the people who believe in justice and freedom for everyone to make pressure against the state of Israeli apartheid to end the policy of the collective punishments against the civilians.”

Gaza 2020 Breaking the Siege has vowed to continue challenging Israel’s brutal siege.

“We want Gazans to know that we will not give up, that we will continue opposing this illegal and barbaric siege of innocent people,” they said.