The Liberal Democrat MP who claimed she could understand the motivation of Palestinian suicide bombers has said that she would not be "brave enough" to become one herself.

Jenny Tonge, who was sacked from the frontbench for her previous remarks, made her new comments after meeting with the Israeli relatives of suicide bombing victims, as part of a trip organised by the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Following those conversations, she was asked whether she could now imagine herself as a suicide bomber.

"No I can't, frankly," she said. "But I can't imagine the preparation and the paraphernalia. And also frankly I don't think I would be brave enough, if I'm totally honest.

"But I still can understand the mixture of despair, resistance to an occupying force which always causes terrorists to pop up out of nowhere, and heavily laced with a religious belief or some indoctrination.

"I can still understand and put myself in the position of people who do it."

She said her lasting impression of the trip was "depression, from both sides and the sense that it is just going to go on and on and on, and they don't see any end to it. And the Israelis in particular seem to think they have just got to live with it".