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telling myself this had to be part of our training. If it was for real, we’d have
been more badly beaten, or killed. Still, I couldn’t be completely sure.

The truck lurched to a stop. We were led into a building, down a hallway and
into a large room. The walls were bare except for a series of iron rings. Our
captors tore the sacks from our heads for a few moments, and tied our wrists to
the manacles. For the first six or seven hours we were kept together, arms
shackled and raised. Then they took us away one by one. I was the last to be led
out. I was taken to a room so small there was not even space for a cot. It wasn’t
until the last shaft of light disappeared from the slit-like window near the top of
wall that the first interrogator showed up. He unlocked the door, entered and
unfolded a metal chair. He wanted answers: what unit was I from, what did our
unit do, who were our commanders, what were our orders, and what was our
designated role in the event of war.

I told him my name, rank and serial number. After each question, I repeated
them, or shook my head in silence. “You will answer, sooner or later,” he
shouted in heavily Arabic-accented Hebrew, hitting me across the face. “All of
you will.” For four days and nights, other interrogators shouted out the same
questions. I was slapped dozens of times. Punched in the stomach. One of the
captors uncuffed me and bent my arm behind my back, wrenching it upward.
Though I was determined not to cry out, I grunted in pain. Over and over, I told
myself: “This is not for real. They can hurt me. But they have limits. They can
twist my arm. They can hurt me. But there’s no way they can break my arm.”

I was not allowed to sleep. I was never left alone for more than a half-hour.
If I was crouching on the stone floor, I would be yanked to my feet and punched
or slapped. Twice a day, I was taken from my cell to a primitive toilet and given
a minute to relieve myself. There were only two changes to the routine. On a
few occasions, five or six of us were brought back into the large room and told
we wouldn’t be let go until we had given them more of what they wanted – the
implication being that some of us had already talked. And once or twice, the
interrogators sent in a good cop. “I can help you,” he told me. “But you have to
give me something.”

But when it was over, none of us had talked. We didn’t fool ourselves into
thinking that meant we could hold up in genuine captivity. There, they could
break your arm. They could burn your chest with cigarettes, rip out a fingernail
or a tooth. They could kill you. The main value had been to give us some sense
of what we might face. We might still be afraid, but at least it would no longer
be fear of the unknown.

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