NABLUS, West Bank ? It was 10:30 p.m., and I was in custody at an Israeli army base roused from my bed hours earlier and detained, despite my protests that I was a reporter, with dozens of other Palestinian men.

A soldier called my name and my spirits lifted I knew I would be released. What I didn’t know was how much real danger was ahead.

Associated Press reporter Mohammed Daraghmeh shows a white flag given to him by Israeli soldiers and his ID card near the West Bank city of Nablus after his release from an Israeli detention center. Daraghmeh, who reports on events in the West Bank for The Associated Press, was released late Tuesday after being detained by Israeli troops in the morning during an arrest sweep of his neighborhood.

After being held handcuffed and blindfolded for 20 hours, part of a sweep in which dozens were detained before dawn Tuesday in the West Bank city of Nablus, I was led to the camp gate, given a letter saying I had been freed and told to go.

But I faced a major problem: I was at least six miles from the home I shared with my wife and three sons in Nablus, which is under strict curfew. Israeli troops were positioned all along my route.

I thought about asking to stay at the base until morning, then decided against it and began walking.

I went about 200 yards before encountering soldiers at a checkpoint. Four trained their rifles on me and the fifth approached and checked my ID document and the letter I had received.

I was allowed to pass. But after 300 yards, shooting erupted nearby, though I couldn’t pinpoint the location.

With my hands raised, I rushed back toward the soldiers at the checkpoint, who were not involved in the shooting, and explained I was afraid I would be shot.

The response was icy.

“So what?” the soldier said. “It’s your city. Don’t you know what’s going on in your city?”

I was ordered to move 200 yards from the checkpoint, while they checked with their commanders. I waited in the darkness for three hours as more than a dozen tanks passed by.

Each time, I would hold up my hands, a soldier would pop out of the tank top, his gun pointed at me, and ask what I was doing there.

About 2 a.m., the soldiers summoned me back to the checkpoint and ordered me to leave. I protested that it was too dangerous.

“I’m afraid I’ll be shot,” I said.

“If you stay here, I’ll shoot you,” the soldier said, looking completely serious.

Some kindness

I started down the road again and after about a half-mile, I knocked at a Palestinian home and was greeted by an elderly man, who gave me coffee and a mattress on his floor.

I was up at 7 a.m. Wednesday, thanked my host and began walking. After a few miles, on a deserted street in Nablus, I encountered several tanks.

The soldiers ordered me to take off my jacket, my shirt and finally, to drop my pants, so they could see I had no weapons.

They took my identity card and my letter from the army, and asked why I was released Tuesday but still hadn’t gone home. I began telling my story, but the soldier cut me off.

“All you Palestinians claim you are innocent, but all of you are killers,” the soldier said. “You hate us. You dream of throwing us into the sea.”

I told him it wasn’t true, that I have many Israeli friends, and often work with Israeli journalists.

After about an hour, I was given a stick with a white flag and told to keep walking.

A little while later, I saw some journalist friends driving on the street. They gave me a phone to call my family and, finally, a ride home.

My wife was desperate with worry because The Associated Press told her Tuesday night that I had been released, but she hadn’t heard from me.

When I reached my building, my sons, ages 12, 10 and 6, greeted me with hugs. One by one, my neighbors came to my apartment, anxious to know when their sons and fathers would be returning.

Mass detainment

About 35 of us had been rounded up in the sweep on my five-story apartment block awakened at 3 a.m. by the roar of Israeli armored personnel carriers and ordered outside in pajamas and slippers.

I was allowed back inside to dress and grab a jacket. But I took no valuables because I knew I was likely to lose them. More than a decade ago, I had been a student activist and detained for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. I turned away from my activist days when I graduated from the university in 1990 and became a journalist in 1991.

My plea to the Israeli soldiers that I was a journalist and needed to keep working because Israeli invasions were taking place in several West Bank areas brought a laugh. “Here, too,” the soldiers said.

The soldiers were polite initially, but grew more aggressive as they cuffed our hands, blindfolded us and put us in armored personnel carriers.

We were taken to a nearby residential building and were joined by dozens of others detainees. While we were sitting on the ground floor, a 58-year-old economics professor insisted his handcuffs be removed.

“I am a professor. I am not a boy. Don’t humiliate me,” he said.

“You are a professor of Hamas,” the soldier replied sharply, referring to the militant Islamic group.

Eventually the soldiers took off the professor’s cuffs and put him in charge of giving us water and leading us to the bathroom.

We sat for three hours, and the professor complained again, drawing a sympathetic response but no improvement in our situation.

“This is not a condition I prefer to be in,” the soldier said. “But you know, this is a conflict. I’m sorry, but we have to do this. And I hope that we will have peace after this conflict.”

Eventually, about 50 of us were driven to an army base about six miles away. We were led into a tent and placed on the dusty ground, and given water and a meat sandwich on pita bread. I was hungry and thirsty, but didn’t want to consume too much, because I know how difficult it is to go to the bathroom while handcuffed.

I spent about eight hours just sitting on the ground. No one questioned me. Despite my blindfold, I could see a soldier strike a prisoner on the head with a stick during an argument, but this was unusual. Mostly we were just ignored.

I was tired, but the plastic handcuffs chafed my wrists and I couldn’t sleep. I asked a soldier several times to adjust the cuffs, and he said he would, but needed a knife. He never did. Then my name was finally called, and I began my journey home.