Israel rejects freeing most popular Palestinian leader
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK—The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader—Marwan Barghouti—is not among the prisoners identified by Israel to be exchanged for hostages held by Hamas under the new Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israel has rejected freeing other high-profile prisoners whose release Hamas has long sought, though it was not immediately clear if a list of around 250 prisoners issued on Friday on the Israeli government’s official website was final.
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk told the Al Jazeera TV network that the group was insisting on the release of Barghouti and other high-profile figures and that it was in discussions with mediators.
Israel views Barghouti as a terrorist leader. He is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted in 2004 for attacks in Israel that killed five people.
Barghouti is an advocate of a two-state solution even as he backed armed resistance to occupation.
Some say he could be a powerful rallying figure for Palestinians, some of whom view him as their own Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who became his country’s first Black president.
Hostage release
With the ceasefire and Israeli troop pullback in Gaza that came into effect on Friday, Hamas is to release about 20 living Israeli hostages by Monday. Israel is to free some 250 Palestinians serving prison sentences, as well as around 1,700 people seized from Gaza over the past two years and held without charge.
One prisoner who will be freed is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel from 2003-2005 that killed 13 people.
The oldest and longest imprisoned to be released is 64-year-old Samir Abu Naama, a Fatah member who was arrested from the West Bank in 1986 and convicted on charges of planting explosives. The youngest is Mohammed Abu Qatish, who was 16 when he was arrested in 2022 and convicted of attempted stabbing.
Another Sinwar?
Hamas leaders have in the past demanded that Israel release Barghouti, a leader of the militant group’s main political rival, Fatah, as part of any deal to end the 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 a 2011 exchange. The long-serving prisoner was one of the main architects of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the latest war in Gaza, and he went on to lead the militant group before being killed by Israeli forces last year.
One of the few consensus figures in Palestinian politics, Barghouti, 66, is widely seen as a potential successor to President Mahmoud Abbas.
