RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader — Marwan Barghouti They are not among the prisoners Israel is trying to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under a new ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Israel also refuses to release other famous prisoners Hamas has long sought their release, but it was not immediately clear whether the list of about 250 prisoners posted on the Israeli government’s official website on Friday was final.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, told the Al Jazeera television network that Hamas insists on the release of Barghouti and other key figures and is in talks with mediators.
Israel considers Barghouti a terrorist leader. He was convicted in connection with an attack that killed five people in Israel in 2004 and is serving multiple life sentences.
But some experts say there is another reason why Israel fears Barghouti. Barghouti, a proponent of a two-state solution while supporting armed resistance to the occupation, could be a powerful rallying cry for Palestinians. Some Palestinians see Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who became the country’s first black president, as one of their own.
With the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of Israeli troops that took effect on Friday, Hamas plans to release about 20 living Israeli hostages by Monday. Israel plans to release about 250 Palestinians serving prison terms, as well as about 1,700 people captured from Gaza and held without charge over the past two years.
The release has strong resonance on both sides. Israelis consider the prisoners to be terrorists, and some have been involved in suicide bombings. Many Palestinians see it this way. thousands of Detained by Israel as a political prisoner or resistance freedom fighter decades of military occupation.
Many of those being released were incarcerated 20 years ago.
Most of the people on the Israeli prisoner list are members of Hamas and Fatah groups who were arrested in the 2000s. Many of them were convicted of involvement in shootings, bombings, and other attacks that killed or attempted to kill Israeli civilians, settlers, and soldiers. After their release, more than half will be sent to Gaza or seek asylum outside the Palestinian territories, according to the list.
The 2000s saw the outbreak of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising fueled by anger at the continued occupation despite years of peace negotiations. The riots turned bloody, with hundreds of Israelis killed in attacks by Palestinian militants and thousands of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
One of the prisoners to be released is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings that killed 13 people in Israel between 2003 and 2005.
The oldest and longest-serving prisoner to be released is Samir Abu Naama, 64, a Fatah member who was arrested in the West Bank in 1986 and convicted of planting explosives. The youngest is Mohamed Abu Katish, who was 16 when he was arrested in 2022 and convicted of attempted stabbing.
Hamas has long sought Barghouti’s freedom.
Hamas leaders have in the past called on Israel to release Barghouti, leader of the Islamic extremist group’s main rival Fatah, as part of a deal to end the fighting in Gaza. However, Israel has refused in previous exchanges.
Israel fears history will repeat itself after liberation Hamas official Yahya Sinwar In the 2011 exchange. The longtime prisoner was one of the key architects of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the latest war in Gaza and led the extremist group until he was killed by Israeli forces last year.
Barghouti, 66, one of the few consensus-builders in Palestinian politics, is widely seen as a possible successor to Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbasthe aging and unpopular leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which runs part of the West Bank. Opinion polls consistently show that Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader.
Barghouti was born in 1959 in the West Bank village of Khobar. While studying history and politics at Bir Zeit University, he spearheaded student protests against the Israeli occupation. He emerged as an organizer of the first Palestinian uprising that broke out in December 1987.
Eventually Israel exiled him to Jordan. He returned to the West Bank in the 1990s as part of an interim peace agreement aimed at creating a Palestinian Authority and paving the way for statehood.
After the outbreak of the second intifada, Israel accused Barghouti, then the West Bank’s Fatah leader, of being the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose collection of Fatah-aligned armed groups that attacked Israelis.
Barghouti has never commented on his ties to the brigade. He expressed hope that a Palestinian state and Israel would live side by side in peace, but said Palestinians have the right to fight back in the face of Israeli settlement expansion and military violence against Palestinians.
“I’m not a terrorist, but I’m also not a pacifist,” he wrote in a 2002 Washington Post editorial.
Shortly after, he was arrested by Israel. At trial, he chose not to plead because he did not recognize the authority of the court. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to five life sentences for his involvement in several brigade attacks, but was acquitted of other attacks.
A united figure in prison.
2021, Barghouti registered my list Due to parliamentary elections that were later called off. A few years ago he led over 1,500 prisoners of war He went on a 40-day hunger strike to demand better treatment in the Israeli prison system.
Barghouti has shown he can bridge the Palestinian divide while reaching out to Israelis, said Mouan Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now and co-editor of Jadariya, an online magazine focused on the Middle East.
Barghouti is “seen as a credible national leader, someone who can lead the Palestinian people in a way that Abbas has consistently failed to do,” Barghouti said.
Rabbani said Israel “wants to avoid” such a situation because of its long-standing policies that continue to divide the Palestinian people and weaken Abbas’ government, adding that Abbas also felt threatened by Barghouti’s release.
Eyal Zisser, vice president of Tel Aviv University and an expert on Arab-Israeli relations, said Barghouti had nothing to do with the corruption that has plagued Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and led many to rebel.
Zisser said his popularity could strengthen Palestinian organizations, a scary idea for Israel’s right-wing government, which opposes any steps towards statehood.
Barghouti was last seen in August, when Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir took office. He posted a video of himself admonishing Barghouti. Inside the prison, Israel said it would confront and “wipe out” those who opposed the state.
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Keith reported from Cairo and Frankel from Jerusalem. Associated Press correspondent Bassem Mourou contributed from Beirut.
