The hardest thing [about being in prison] was the inhuman treatment I got from the prisoners. You are free-falling down the rabbit hall and there is no parachute. The only thing that helped keep my sanity was that I knew Israel would never abandon me, even though I’m Druze. This is thanks to a religious duty in Judaism to bring about the release of a fellow Jew captured or imprisoned unjustly by the authorities.

What was the hardest memory you have from prison?

I had an Egyptian prisoner friend who was sentenced to death. On the morning of the sentencing, he asked to come and say goodbye. He looked at me through the bars and said: “I will never see my family again, but I know you will. I wish I had been Israeli.”