Israel rejects freeing from prison the most popular Palestinian leader
[October 11, 2025]
By LEE KEATH, JULIA FRANKEL and JALAL BWAITAL
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The most popular and potentially unifying
Palestinian leader — Marwan Barghouti — is not among the prisoners
Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the
new Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israel has also 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 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 insists 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 in connection with attacks
in Israel that killed five people.
But some experts say Israel fears Barghouti for another reason: An
advocate of a two-state solution even as he backed armed resistance to
occupation, Barghouti could be a powerful rallying figure for
Palestinians. Some Palestinians view him as their own Nelson Mandela,
the South African anti-apartheid activist who became his country's first
Black president.
With the ceasefire and Israeli troop pullback in Gaza that came into
effect 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 the past two
years and held without charge.
The releases have powerful resonance on both sides. Israelis see the
prisoners as terrorists, some of them involved in suicide bombings. Many
Palestinians view the thousands held by Israel as political prisoners or
freedom fighters resisting decades of military occupation.
Many to be released were jailed 2 decades ago
Most of those on the Israeli prisoner list are members of Hamas and the
Fatah faction 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, settlers and soldiers. After their
release, more than half will be sent to Gaza or into exile outside the
Palestinian territories, according to the list.
The 2000s saw the eruption of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian
uprising fueled by anger over continued occupation despite years of
peace talks. The uprising turned bloody, with Palestinian armed groups
carrying out attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis, and the Israeli
military killing several thousand Palestinians.
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 an attempted stabbing.
Hamas has long sought Barghouti's freedom
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, the
aging and unpopular leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian
Authority that runs pockets of the West Bank. Polls consistently show
Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader.
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A man walks past a mural depicting the Palestinian leader Marwan
Barghouti, with a message that reads in Arabic, "See you soon,” on
Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Aug.
20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, File)
Barghouti was born in the West Bank village of Kobar in 1959. While
studying history and politics at Bir Zeit University, he helped
spearhead student protests against the Israeli occupation. He
emerged as an organizer in the first Palestinian uprising, which
erupted in December 1987.
Israel eventually deported him to Jordan. He returned to the West
Bank in the 1990s as part of interim peace agreements that created
the Palestinian Authority and were meant to pave the way for a
state.
After the Second Intifada broke out, Israel accused Barghouti – then
head of Fatah in the West Bank -- of being the leader of the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades, a loose collection of Fatah-linked armed groups
that carried out attacks on Israelis.
Barghouti never commented on his links to the Brigades. While he
expressed hopes for a Palestinian state and Israel side by side in
peace, he said Palestinians had a right to fight back in the face of
growing Israeli settlements and the military’s violence against
Palestinians.
“I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist,” he wrote in a
2002 editorial in The Washington Post.
Soon after, he was arrested by Israel. At trial he opted not to
defend himself because he didn’t recognize the court’s authority. He
was convicted of murder for involvement in several Brigades' attacks
and given five life sentences, while acquitted over other attacks.
A unifying figure throughout his imprisonment
In 2021, Barghouti registered his own list for parliamentary
elections that were later called off. A few years earlier, he led
more than 1,500 prisoners in a 40-day hunger strike to call for
better treatment in the Israeli prison system.
Barghouti showed he could build bridges across Palestinian divisions
even as he reached out to Israelis, said Mouin Rabbani, non-resident
fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now and co-editor of
Jadaliyya, an online magazine focusing on the Middle East.
Barghouti is “seen as a credible national leader, someone who can
lead the Palestinians in a way Abbas as consistently failed to,” he
said.
Israel is “keen to avoid” that, since its policy for years has been
to keep Palestinians divided and Abbas’ administration weak, Rabbani
said, adding that Abbas also feels threatened by any Barghouti
release.
Barghouti is not connected to the corruption that has plagued Abbas’
Palestinian Authority and turned many against it, said Eyal Zisser,
the vice rector of Tel Aviv University and an expert in Arab-Israeli
relations.
His popularity could strengthen Palestinian institutions, a
terrifying thought for Israel’s right-wing government, which opposes
any steps toward statehood, Zisser said.
Barghouti was last seen in August, when Israel’s far-right national
security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted a video of himself
admonishing Barghouti inside a prison, saying Israel will confront
anyone who acts against the country and “wipe them out.”
___
Keath reported from Cairo, and Frankel from Jerusalem. Associated
Press correspondent Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut.
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