Arab Barghouti, the son of detained prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, 67, said an Israeli prison guard fired a rubber bullet at his father last week at Ganot Prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel and that he received no treatment for the injury.
“The guard shot my father in the foot,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the family learned of the incident through Barghouti’s lawyer, prominent Israeli civil rights attorney Avigdor Feldman.
The Israel Prison Service told AFP that the allegation was “false and baseless”, saying its staff operated “in accordance with the law and under continuous judicial oversight”.
Barghouti remains a prominent figure in Palestinian politics despite having been imprisoned for nearly a quarter of a century. He won the highest number of votes among those elected to Fatah’s Central Committee in an internal vote held two months ago.
His son described the shooting as “a new attempt to undermine him amid continued Israeli incitement”, which he said had intensified in recent weeks as an international campaign for his father’s release expanded.
He said the scale of the targeting reflected Marwan Barghouti’s stature, influence and symbolic importance, and expressed confidence that he would ultimately regain his freedom.
Many Palestinians regard Barghouti as a potential savior because of his broad popularity within Fatah and other factions, including Hamas, which has repeatedly sought his release through prisoner-exchange deals. Israel has refused.
The latest Israeli campaign against him was led by the Israel Prison Service, which sought to compare him to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, whom Israel killed during the war in Gaza.
The reported incident was not the first assault alleged against Barghouti.
A lawyer who visited him on April 12 said he had been attacked three times, on March 24, March 25 and April 8, leaving him bleeding from several parts of his body without adequate medical treatment.
Israeli lawyer Ben Marmarelli said Barghouti had been severely beaten and, on one occasion, left bleeding for more than two hours. The Israel Prison Service said it was unaware of the incident.
Call for international investigation
The Arab League called on Sunday for an international committee to investigate the “repeated assaults” against Barghouti and for the perpetrators to be brought before an international court.
Barghouti is believed to have been held in solitary confinement for two and a half years.
Last year, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a short video showing him confronting Barghouti inside his cell and speaking to him in a condescending and threatening manner.
The confrontation brought Barghouti further into the spotlight, and US President Donald Trump later said he was considering his case and whether he should be released.
Trump said last October that he might call on Israel to free Barghouti and had discussed the possibility with White House aides.
His remarks increased Barghouti’s political importance among Palestinians, many of whom describe him as the “Palestinian Mandela”.
Informed Palestinian sources told Asharq Al-Awsat after Trump’s comments that Barghouti would certainly run in the next presidential election.
“He will most likely be Fatah’s candidate,” the sources said. “But even if that does not happen for any reason, he will run because he is Marwan.”
An election process canceled at the last moment five years ago indicated the path Barghouti intended to take.
He formed a list with Nasser al-Qudwa, then an expelled member of Fatah’s Central Committee, to challenge the movement’s official list. Barghouti’s name was not included because he planned to run for president.
The reported shooting came as the Israel Prison Service issued an unusually harsh report against him.
The service said Barghouti had not fundamentally changed but had changed his image, replacing weapons with words and the image of a convicted terrorist with that of Nelson Mandela, while continuing to direct matters from his isolation cell.
The report, published on Friday in the “Seven Days” supplement of Yedioth Ahronoth, said Barghouti no longer fired weapons but that his ideology and ideas had become “a form of intellectual terrorism”.
It accused him of trying to influence Israel’s Arab community and its voting patterns before the next election.
The report said he had built “relationships with Arab members of the Knesset to interfere in Israeli politics, influence elections in Israel and affect voter turnout among Arab citizens of Israel”.
“He is like Yahya Sinwar, only more cunning,” an Israeli officer was quoted as saying. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing. He will mobilize an extremist force and, as soon as he has the opportunity, he will attack us. He is far more dangerous.”
Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker rejected the report, writing in Haaretz that it was so disgraceful that he wondered whether it was Barghouti’s way of mocking Israel.
Drucker accused Israeli intelligence of acting as a tool for Ben-Gvir.
He said Barghouti could play an important role in building a new Palestinian leadership and expressed hope that someone in the security establishment would know how to deal with him more wisely than Israeli intelligence.
Israel’s right-wing Channel 14, which is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responded that Drucker had not yet understood the new reality and was supporting a political role for “a terrorist convicted of five murders”.
Channel 14 presenter Lital Shemesh rejected the idea that a Palestinian leadership seeking peace could emerge.
“Barghouti must remain in prison until the last day of his life,” she said. “Without hope, without glory and without a single moment of freedom.”
International campaign for his release
Barghouti’s wife, lawyer Fadwa Barghouti, issued a statement on Monday in response to the latest Israeli campaign against her husband.
She said the Israel Prison Service report coincided with the expansion of the international “Freedom for Marwan, Freedom for Palestine” campaign, the participation of international figures and leaders, and growing official and public support around the world.
“What the occupation has failed to understand throughout the past quarter of a century, and still fails to understand today, is that Marwan has never abandoned his conviction that freedom is a right and that the occupation will come to an end,” she said.
“Incitement and assault will not change this truth. They will not remove Marwan from the consciousness of his people or from the conscience of free people around the world, nor will they take from Marwan his love for his homeland, his love for the people and his commitment to them.”
“We will meet again soon, Marwan,” she added. “And our people have an appointment with life, freedom and dignity.”
