Will Israel release Marwan Barghouti, the ‘Palestinian Mandela’?

Amid growing calls for Barghouti to be released after 22 years in jail, Israel has moved him into solitary confinement.

Marwan Barghouti’s supporters call him the Palestinian Mandela. Like the South African leader who was imprisoned by the apartheid regime for 28 years, the Fatah politician has been in jail for more than two decades.

Now, despite growing calls for his release — including from Hamas, a long-time rival of Fatah — his incarceration appears poised to continue. On Wednesday, Israel’s extreme right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced that Barghouti had been moved to solitary confinement. Al Jazeera has independently confirmed this.

Barghouti was a prominent leader in the first and second Intifadas and was convicted by an Israeli court on five counts of murder in 2004, two years after he was jailed. His imprisonment by Israel has been among the most high profile and his release has long been a key aim of several of the groups opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Israel accused Barghouti of having founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the early 2000s and indicted him on 26 charges of murder and attempted murder attributed to the Brigades. He was sentenced by an Israeli court to five cumulative life sentences, plus 40 years for attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organisation.

Barghouti offered no defence, refusing to recognise the authority of the Israeli court and saying only that he supported the armed resistance but opposed the targeting of civilians.