This went on for days, hours upon hours of waiting, then questions, threats, and yelling. They bound me in a painful position with my back arched abnormally across a chair for so long that my whole body spasmed when they finally untied me. Eventually I confessed to helping sabotage the water pipe. I refused to implicate Bilal on principle. But I did sign a confession in Hebrew, and who knows what the confession actually stated.

They sent me back to prison, where I resided in a room with four others. It was not at all like Bilal’s imprisonment where, despite everything, there was camaraderie and brotherhood among Palestinian political prisoners. Instead, they locked me up with Israeli criminals who despised me. One of them spoke Arabic and later tried to befriend me, warning me about this or that, advising me how to get the best food, and which guards or inmates to avoid. She claimed she was a Palestinian from the Galilee, in prison for “resistance activities.” She seemed a cartoon of what Bilal had once explained were “birds,” Palestinian collaborators who befriended new arrivals to extract information. She claimed she knew Bilal. “Well, I don’t actually know him. I’ve heard of him. Everyone has. You’re so lucky to be married to a hero,” she said.

I nodded. She smiled.

“I just want you to know that I don’t believe the things that were said about you. I hate it when people let their jealousy ruin a girl’s reputation,” she said.

I didn’t react. She wasn’t a very good bird and could barely contain her impatience to get me to talk. She eventually left me alone and soon disappeared from the prison. That’s when harassment by other inmates and guards started. I was terrified but did my best to hide it, until two Israeli women came to my defense the second time I was beaten. They weren’t interested in being my friends, but they made it clear that there could be consequences if others didn’t stop attacking me. I don’t know why they did that, but I have learned one can be surprised by the presence of humanity in many guises and languages, and in the most inhuman of places.

My trial was in Hebrew and lasted two days. It would have been shorter, but I had “wasted the court’s time and made things worse.”

The first time Israel sentenced Bilal to prison, he was tried in absentia. They locked him up when he traded himself for his brother. Every subsequent imprisonment was for violating the terms of his release or simply administrative detention. He never had a trial in a courtroom. He once told me he would never have cooperated with their judiciary because that would mean recognition of Israel’s authority.