Far-right Israeli minister confronts long-imprisoned Palestinian leader
A video widely circulated on Friday shows Israelโs far-right national security minister berating a Palestinian leader inside a prison, saying anyone who acts against the country will be โwiped outโ.
Marwan Barghouti is serving five life sentences after being convicted of involvement in attacks at the height of the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the early 2000s. Polls consistently show he is the most popular Palestinian leader. He has rarely been seen since his arrest more than two decades ago.
It was unclear when the video was taken, but it shows national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for staging provocative encounters with Palestinians, telling Barghouti that he will โnot winโ.
โAnyone who murders children, who murders women, we will wipe them out,โ Ben-Gvir said.
Ben-Gvirโs spokesperson confirmed the visit and the videoโs authenticity, but denied that the minister was threatening Barghouti.
Barghouti, now in his mid-sixties, was a senior leader in President Mahmoud Abbasโ secular Fatah movement during the intifada. Many Palestinians see him as a natural successor to the ageing and unpopular leader of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel considers him a terrorist and has shown no sign it would release him. Hamas has demanded his release in exchange for hostages taken in the attack in October 2023 that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
In a Facebook post, Barghoutiโs wife, Fadwa, said she couldnโt recognise her husband, who appeared frail in the video. Still, she said after watching the video, he remained connected to the Palestinian people.
โPerhaps a part of me does not want to acknowledge everything that your face and body shows, and what you and the prisoners have been through,โ she wrote.
Meanwhile, the UN human rights office said an Israeli plan to build thousands of new homes between an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal under international law, and would put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it described as a war crime.
Israeli far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to press on with a long-delayed settlement project, saying the move would โburyโ the idea of a Palestinian state.
A UN rights office spokesperson said the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves and that it was โa war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupiesโ.
About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, a move not recognised by most countries, but it has not formally extended sovereignty over the West Bank.
Most world powers say settlement expansion erodes the viability of a two-state solution by breaking up territory the Palestinians seek as part of a future independent state.
The two-state plan envisages a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, existing side by side with Israel, which captured all three territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel cites historical and biblical ties to the area and says the settlements provide strategic depth and security and that the West Bank is โdisputedโ not โoccupiedโ.
