The BBC team detained by Israeli forces in southern Syria

On the morning of May 9, I was part of an Arab team of the BBC, which left the Syrian capital, Damascus, for the southern province of Deraa. From there, we planned to go to the border with Israeli Golanski heights.

We wanted to get closer to the Syrian territory, which had been seized by Israeli military since December, when the Israeli Prime Minister said he was taking control indefinitely at the demilitarized buffer zone and neighboring areas after the fall of the Bashar al -Assad regime.

We were a team of seven – I (British citizen), two Iraqi BBC officials and four Syrians – three freelancers and one BBC operator.

We were filming near one of the UN observation posts (Undof), near the city of Al-Rafid, when a UN employee told us that the Israeli side was interested in our identity and were informed that we were a BBC crew.

We then headed north to the city of Quneitra, which was located in the buffer zone after the 1974 separation agreement between Syria and Israel, which captured Golana during the Middle East war in 1967.

About 200 m (660 feet) from the city, an unsuccessful checkpoint blocks the road. On the side of the checkpoint, we noticed tanks of Merkava, one of which flies an Israeli flag.

From the nearby tower, two Israeli soldiers watched us – one of them through Binoculars – and my colleague kept his BBC identifier to see them.

The BBC complained to the Israeli military about what had happened to my team, but has not yet received an answer.

A minute after we started shooting in the area, a white car approached the other side of the checkpoint.

Four Israeli soldiers got out of the car and surrounded us. They pointed their rifles at our head and ordered us to put the camera on the side of the road. I tried to explain that we were a BBC crew, but things were escaped unexpectedly quickly.

I was able to send a message to my BBC colleagues in London, saying that we were stopped by the Israeli military before our phones and all the equipment was confiscated, more and more Israeli soldiers arrived at a Humvee military vehicle and our car was carefully searched.

The soldiers accompanied us through a barrier in the town of Kunitra and stopped at the intersection, which separated Kunitra from the occupied Golan. There, the soldiers began to look at the footage as we sat in our car as one pointed his rifle in my head by meters. After more than two hours, one of the soldiers asked me to get out of the car and talk on a mobile phone.

I didn’t know who the man was on the line. He spoke a broken Arabic. He asked why we were shooting Israeli military positions. I told him I was a British BBC journalist and explained to him the nature of our work. I went back to my car and the rifle was pointed to my head again.

After another hour of waiting, another vehicle arrived. A group of security staff got out of the car, carrying lights and plastic zipper connections and asked me to get out first.

The leading officer, who spoke freely Palestinian Arabic dialect, took me by the hand to one of the rooms at the intersection, which was previously used by the Syrian army. The floor was strewn with broken glass and garbage. He told me that they would treat me differently – without handcuffs, not with their eyes – unlike the rest of my team.

I was in shock. I asked why they were doing this when they knew we were a BBC crew.

He said he wanted to help us quickly get us out and that we need to comply with their instructions.

After moments, another officer came in and told me to take off all my clothes except my underwear. Initially, I refused, but they insisted and threatened me, so I complied. He looked even in my underwear, both in the front and back, searched my clothes, and then told me to return them and began to question me – including personal questions about my children and their ages.

When I was eventually released from the room, I witnessed the horrifying scene of the members of my team, tied and tied with tied eyes. I got tired of the officer to release them and he promised to do it after the interrogations. They were taken one by one to the same search room and interrogation of tapes.

They came back with their hands, still tied, but not with their eyes. The interrogation of the team continued for more than two hours, during which all our phones and laptops and many photos were considered – including personal ones – were deleted.

The officer threatened us with worse consequences if we approached the border again from the Syrian side and said that they knew everything about us and would follow us if a hidden or not deleted photo was ever posted.

About seven o’clock after our detention – it was 21:00 – they were taken from two vehicles, one in front of our car and the other behind us, to a rural area about 2 km (1.2 miles) outside Kunitra. There, the vehicles also stopped a bag containing our phones and was thrown at us before the vehicles left.

Lost in the dark without a signal, without the Internet and I have no idea where we are, we continued to drive until we reached a small village.

A group of children directed us to the highway, warning that the wrong turn could attract Israeli fire. Ten ten minutes later, we found the way. Forty -five minutes later we were in Damascus.