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Most popular and potentially integrated palestinian Leader – Marwan Barghouti – is not among the prisoners israel intends to free in exchange for hostages Hamas under new Gaza Armistice agreement.
Israel has also refused to release other high-profile prisoners whose release Hamas has long sought, although it was not immediately clear whether a list of about 250 prisoners released Friday on the Israeli government’s official website was final.
Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouq told the Al Jazeera TV network that the group is pushing for the release of Barghouti and other high-profile figures and that it is in discussions with mediators.
Israel views Barghouti as a terrorist leader. He is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted in connection with attacks in Israel in 2004 that killed five people.
But some experts say Israel fears Barghouti for another reason: A supporter of the two-state solution, even if he has supported armed resistance to the occupation, Barghouti could be a powerful rallying figure for Palestinians. Some Palestinians see him as their Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who became his country’s first black president.
With a ceasefire in Gaza taking effect on Friday and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, Hamas is to release about 20 surviving Israeli hostages by Monday. Israel is to release about 250 Palestinians serving prison sentences, as well as about 1,700 people captured and held without charge in Gaza over the past two years.
There is a strong resonance on both sides of the release. Israelis view the prisoners as terrorists, some of whom were involved in suicide bombings. Many Palestinians view the thousands of people held by Israel as political prisoners or freedom fighters resisting decades of military occupation.
Many of the people released were jailed 2 decades ago
Most of the people on the Israeli prisoner list are members of the Hamas and Fatah factions arrested in the 2000s. Many of them were convicted of involvement in shootings, bombings or other attacks that killed or attempted to kill Israeli civilians, residents and soldiers. According to the list, more than half of the people would be sent into exile outside Gaza or the Palestinian territories after their release.
The 2000s saw the eruption of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising filled with anger over the continued occupation despite years of peace talks. The uprising turned bloody, with Palestinian armed groups carrying out attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis, and Israeli forces killing several thousand Palestinians.
One prisoner who will be released is Iyad Abu al-Rab, an Islamic Jihad commander who was convicted of carrying out suicide bombings in Israel from 2003-2005 that killed 13 people.
The oldest to be released and the longest-serving in prison 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 Mohammed Abu Qateesh, who was 16 when he was arrested in 2022 and convicted of attempted murder by knifeman.
Hamas has been demanding Barghouti’s freedom for a long time
Hamas leaders have in the past demanded that Israel release Barghouti, the leader of Fatah, the militant group’s main political rival, as part of any deal to end fighting in Gaza. But Israel has refused in previous exchanges.
Israel fears history could repeat itself after it released senior Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in 2011. The long-serving prisoner was one of the masterminds of the October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the latest war in Gaza, and he rose to lead the militant group before he was killed by Israeli forces last year.
Barghouti, 66, one of the few unanimous figures in Palestinian politics, is widely seen as a potential successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, the aging and unpopular leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which runs parts of the West Bank. Polls consistently show that Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader.
Barghouti was born in 1959 in the village of Kobar in the West Bank. While studying history and politics at Beer Zeit University, he helped lead student protests against the Israeli occupation. He first emerged as an organizer in the first Palestinian uprising, which broke out in December 1987.
Israel eventually deported him to Jordan. He returned to the West Bank in the 1990s as part of the interim peace agreements that created the Palestinian Authority and were intended to pave the way for one state.
After the Second Intifada began, Israel accused Barghouti, then head of Fatah in the West Bank, of being the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose group of Fatah-linked armed groups that had carried out attacks on Israelis.
Barghouti has never commented on his relationship with the Brigades. Although he expressed hope for a Palestinian state and peace with Israel, he said that Palestinians have the right to fight back in the face of expanding Israeli settlements and military violence against Palestinians.
“I’m not a terrorist, but I’m not a pacifist either,” he wrote in a 2002 editorial for The Washington Post.
Soon after, he was arrested by Israel. He chose not to defend himself at trial because he did not recognize the authority of the court. He was convicted of murder and given five life sentences for his involvement in several Brigade attacks, while acquitted in other attacks.
an integrated person throughout his imprisonment
In 2021, Barghouti registered his list for the parliamentary elections, which was later cancelled. A few years ago, he led more than 1,500 prisoners in a 40-day hunger strike demanding better treatment in the Israeli prison system.
Mouin Rabbani, non-resident fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now and co-editor of Jadaliya, an online magazine focused on the Middle East, said Barghouti showed he could build bridges across Palestinian divisions, even as he could reach out to Israelis.
“Barghouti is seen as a credible national leader who can lead the Palestinians like Abbas, who has consistently failed,” he said.
Israel is “keen to avoid” this, Rabbani said, because its policy for years has been to keep the Palestinians divided and keep Abbas’s administration weak, and Abbas also feels threatened by any release of Barghouti.
Eyal Zisser, vice rector of Tel Aviv University and an expert on Arab-Israeli relations, said Barghouti is not linked to the corruption that has plagued Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and turned many against it.
His popularity could strengthen Palestinian institutions, Zisser said, a terrible idea for Israel’s right-wing government, which opposes any steps toward statehood.
Barghouti was last seen in August, when Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted a video of himself warning Barghouti from inside prison, saying that Israel would confront anyone working against the country and “wipe them out.”
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Keith reported from Cairo and Frankel from Jerusalem. Associated Press correspondent Bassem Maroue contributed from Beirut.