Three months ago I entered Palestine via the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge from Jordan. I chose to fly into Amann because of the horror stories I’ve heard that people living and working in Palestine undergo when flying into Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv. Heavy questioning, detention, denial of entry and deportation are just a few of the stories I’ve heard, and a few of the possibilities that occupied my mind as I made the journey from the US to Amman.

Israel’s land crossings have a much better reputation than Ben-Gurion Airport, although travelers who want to spend time or work in Palestine are not immune from being hassled at any point of entry in Israel; if there is any indication that you plan on visiting the West Bank you automatically become a target. But fortunately, after very light questioning and a tourist story, I was granted my three-month visa into Israel, which also allowed me free access to the West Bank.

Getting the three-month visa was great cause for celebration. However, even after getting it I found that during that three-month time period I was continually pre-occupied with my visa’s expiration date and with the inevitable journey I would have to make out of the country. If you want to stay in Palestine longer than three months, you must leave the country before your initial visa expires and try to re-enter at a later time. Those of us who want to live and work in Palestine without Israeli permission in the form of a work visa are at the mercy of the Israeli agents who grant the three-month tourist visas at the borders.

Every exit and entry from an Israeli border brings the stress of wondering whether or not you will be found out. And if so, what will they do to you? Strip-search you? Destroy your laptop, as recently happened to a young American woman as she crossed the Taba border from Egypt into Israel? Or will they deny you entry or even worse, black list you in which case they can deny you entry for however long they see fit? This is the very worst-case scenario that plagues the minds of those of us who wish to work for justice in Palestine every time we have to cross an Israeli border.

Yet perhaps the reason I was so preoccupied with my journey out of Israel was because I have chosen to attach my real name to the articles I have written since I’ve been here. I could have used an alias, but in my heart I feel that I’m not doing anything wrong by living and working in Palestine, and thus saw no reason to cower to Israeli intimidation.

In fact, I feel a great sense of responsibility to use my ability to write in the pursuit of peace and justice for Palestine. Yet choosing to use my real name makes me much easier to identify when crossing borders. Because of it, I feel very much like a marked woman, and as my visa expiry date approached, I had the definite sense that even though I don’t perceive myself as doing anything wrong, the Israelis who have control over how easily I get out and whether or not I get back in might feel differently. I began to wish that I had used an alias.

Because Israel controls access to Palestine, you must decide whether or not you will lie about your intended purpose in Israel or tell the truth. Telling the truth will subject you to hours of interrogation and possibly result in your denial of entry or deportation. Yet lying to the border agents about the purpose of your visit can also result in denial of entry or deportation should they somehow determine your false testimony. As the hour of my expiration date approached, I struggled to figure out whether I would lie or tell the truth about what I’ve been doing here.

A week before my visa expired my nerves were on edge; I started waking up in the middle of the night with my mind racing, and found that I had little to no appetite. Perhaps I was overreacting to the whole thing and taking it all too seriously; most Palestinians might find my fear of Israeli border control laughable. After all, they endure far worse than intense interrogation and strip searches. Nonetheless my main concern has always been retaining my ability to come back to Palestine. Under no circumstances do I want to ever do anything to jeopardize that.

And to top it all off, I had a British friend of Muslim and central Asian origin come to visit me who was detained and interrogated heavily at Ben-Gurion Airport for four hours upon his arrival in November. It was necessary for us to travel out together and ironically, we ended up having to fly out of Ben-Gurion Airport one day before my visa expired.

According to everyone who advised me on how to exit, we did everything wrong in our approach to exiting. In addition to flying out together from Ben-Gurion we also took a taxi from Ramallah to the airport, which required us to undergo a very thorough and long security check before we even got to the departures area. We asked our driver to say he picked us up in Jerusalem, but the security check we received is apparently standard for Palestinian residents of Israel.

In the end, we decided to play the tourist card and those who questioned us were thankfully much more interested in the nature of our relationship than they were in where we had been. They did ask my friend his family origins – fortunately he has a mixed background and was able to say his family name is of African origin. They also asked him in Arabic if he spoke Arabic; he didn’t understand the question and I just played dumb. They did ask if we had visited Palestinian cities in the West Bank, which we denied, and that was basically the extent of our questioning. After a thorough luggage search they sent us merrily on our way.

Perhaps we were just lucky this time, and perhaps Israeli border control is not nearly as smart and organized as they would like us to believe they are. One way or the other, I am out safely for now. Upon my return I imagine I will lose some more sleep along with my appetite, but if that’s what it takes to gain access back to Palestine, then so be it.

Britain Eakin is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.