Fatah warns Israel against endangering Marwan Barghouti's life following 'abuse in prison'

The Palestinian Fatah movement warned that the Israeli government was trying to "assassinate" Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti after he was reportedly attacked by prison guards again.

Barghouti, a hugely popular Palestinian figure, has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002 after an Israeli court convicted him of murder, claiming he was behind attacks in Israel, handing him five life sentences.

He is currently being kept at the Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where he faced the latest assault.

Barghouti was assaulted along with other prisoners early last month, according to a lawyer from the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, but this incident has only just come to light.

"A unit of the prison’s repressive forces brutally assaulted Barghouti in solitary confinement on 9 September," explained the lawyer, who said that the Palestinian commander suffered injuries to his ribs, limbs, back, right arm, and bleeding in his right ear.

Barghouti has been held in solitary confinement since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. He was also reportedly beaten in December 2023 and March 2024.

"What commander Marwan Barghouti… has been subjected to and is being subjected to is nothing but an attempt to eliminate him by a decision of an extremist occupation government," the Fatah Central Committee said in a statement.

The group denounced "the repeated brutal attacks against prisoners...who are being exposed to the most severe and horrific attacks and atrocities, including isolation, beatings, and comprehensive deprivation of treatment, food, and the most basic rights stipulated in international conventions".

Fatah warned that the lives of Barghouti and other prisoners were in danger and called on the UN and human rights groups to urgently intervene, and called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN to pressure Israel to allow visits to the Palestinian figure and his fellow prisoners in detention.

Barghouti, now in his sixties, rose to prominence as the leader of Fatah’s armed branch, Tanzim, during the Second Intifada which began in 2000, after Israeli-Palestinian negotiations brokered by the US at Camp David failed.

His role in Palestinian resistance and his subsequent imprisonment has seen him compared to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, with art and graffiti dedicated to Barghouti on Israel's separation walls in the West Bank checkpoints and separation walls.

Like many Palestinian detainees, Barghouti has faced repeated abuse in Israeli prison.

The Megiddo prison made headlines in September when Haaretz shared photos and videos it obtained showing detainees being abused by prison guards, in what the Israeli Prison Service at the time claimed was "routine exercise".