Nour Ghanem (right) is hugged on his arrival home in Tulkarem. Nour was born in an Israeli jail in October 2003. (Mouid Ashqar, Maan Images)

My youngest child was born in a prison. I named him Nour ("Light"), to signal the hope that he brought to me. Nour was loved by all the prisoners as well - when the prison guards banned the Red Cross from delivering any toys to him, we sewed a teddy bear for him ourselves, using cloth ripped from our brown uniforms. He was a fragile child, suffering as I do from thalassaemia. Yet, for two years he grew up among us, giggling, crying, playing, and making life bearable for us all.

I was three months pregnant with Nour when the soldiers came to our house in Tulkarem refugee camp. There must have been 50 of them, all heavily armed. My three children were ordered out of the house. Ihab was nine and my daughter Nivine was six. While I was trying to shield and protect little Majid, they started beating me. He was only five at the time and had sickle-cell anaemia. After my arrest his disease flared dangerously and he spent 12 days in hospital. Of all my children, Majid especially needed me; he was deeply traumatised by our separation, displaying all the classic signs of withdrawal. This was compounded by the fact that I was unable to see him, visits being banned for Palestinian prisoners, even between women and their children. After enormous pressure from the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups that campaigned on our behalf, the Israeli authorities allowed my children to visit me twice during my four years of captivity.

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Although I was a civilian, I was convicted by a military tribunal for political acts I had not even committed. I was sent to Telmond prison, a military facility notorious for incarcerating Palestinian women and children. Telmond has no windows, and in its yard (which we could use three hours a day), the sun is entirely blocked by huge iron sheets placed on top of a roof of barbed wire. It was an especially bad environment for a pregnant woman: the iron bed, the food (beans and rice every day), the rats everywhere, the beatings, and especially the complete lack of medical attention.

While chained to a bed I gave birth to the youngest Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail. But Nour was more than a symbol or even a much loved son. He was my closest and dearest companion for two years until they snatched him away from me after placing us in solitary confinement for two weeks. For months afterwards he had separation anxiety and I was deeply, utterly, depressed. I don't want to recall the details, they are still too painful.

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