Inside Ansar Central Prison in Gaza City, a security officer in military uniform accompanies a prisoner into a room that looks like a clinic. The prisoner, who has been accused of collaborating with Israel, is seated in front of me. The security officer remains in the room to monitor our conversation.

I ask the prisoner, B.A., if he had any objections to an interview with the press and whether he had been pressured to meet with me. “I am just following orders,” he replied with a little smile on his face. I explained the nature of the meeting to him and that I would be publishing his comments. “No problem,” he responded.  B.A. began the interview with details of his life and his arrest. 

“I am 28 years old. I married my brother’s widow to look after his three children. Twenty days after my wedding, I was arrested by the Internal Security Services, in January 2011, on the street where I went to meet them after having received a phone call from them. The caller claimed that he wanted to buy the apartment where I live,” said B.A. “I admitted during the interrogations, which lasted for six months, that I had been collaborating with the Israeli intelligence services by providing them with information from the Gaza Strip for six years. After nearly eight and a half months, I was referred to the military court, where I was sentenced to life in prison.”

The security officer present during the interview did not hesitate to interrupt when he objected to some of the questions. B.A. said he had not been tortured during the investigation, only slapped in the face or ordered to stand facing the wall when he lied about information, and that he forged a good relationship with the investigator over a period of time.