"Abdel-Karim does not like to talk about his 11 years in captivity.
I was taken underground, a bag put over my head, my hands and legs were
tied and I was dragged to a cell. For the first month, they put me in a
one-meter-square cell with a bright light burning all the time. I was beaten.
They kept me alone for the first six- and-a-half months.
Now 27, he is trying to rebuild his life after only knowing an existence as a boy-soldier or as a prisoner of the South Lebanon Army and the "Israelis".
I had a very patriotic upbringing from my mother, he says. Im proud of what I did. But I cant forget.
We began to train. The guns were bigger than some of us. But we thought we were very big. I was convinced about what we were doing but not by the street war. In the south it was the real war. I went there at 15 and fought for two years before I was captured, he continues.
The favored interrogation techniques of the "Israelis" are well documented by Amnesty and other human rights groups.
The most common torture is shabeh: forcing the hooded victim to remain in a painful position such as squatting or balancing on the toes for hours, alternating with being doused with cold or hot water, and having raucous music played to deprive the detainee of sleep.
Electric shock treatment to the genitals and fingers is frequently cited, as is being suspended from a pole while being beaten. One prisoner in an "Israeli" jail has described being forced into a box just big enough for his body for such long periods that only watching an insect crawling around the box stopped him losing his sanity.
With the SLA, says Abdel-Karim, it was just violence. But the "Israelis" tortured to interrogate me about infiltration routes, arms and supporters.
"After seven months, he became just another of the many Lebanese hostages and thousands of Palestinians held in Ashqelon prison in "Israel".
Surprisingly, perhaps, he feels this was the worst period of his captivity. It was the routine. I always felt weak, they gave us just enough food to survive, he says.