Marwan Barghouti is at the top of Hamas’s prisoner release list in proposed truce with Israel, brother says

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For more than two decades, Marwan Barghouti has been the most famous Palestinian in Israeli prison, hailed by many as the next leader of his people. Now his brother believes that he is on the verge of being released as part of a proposed ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Muqbel Barghouti told The Globe and Mail on Friday that he has been informed by Hamas that his brother is at the top of the list of Palestinians they want released as part of a wider truce that would also see Hamas release 33 of the hostages it has been holding in Gaza since the Islamist group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The U.S.-and-Egypt brokered pact, which would also see Israel halt its seven-month-old offensive in Gaza, has been the subject of a week-long waiting game between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership, with neither side publicly agreeing to or walking away from the offer.

Releasing Mr. Barghouti – who is sometimes dubbed the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela” – would unleash a political earthquake inside the Palestinian Authority and in its relationship with Israel.

A March opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research confirmed that Mr. Barghouti was by far the most popular figure in the West Bank and Gaza, well clear of Mahmoud Abbas, the 88-year-old Palestinian Authority President. Mr. Barghouti was the only member of the secular Fatah party able to win a head-to-head competition against Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, with 62 per cent of decided voters saying they would support him, compared with 37 per cent in favour of Mr. Haniyeh. (If Mr. Abbas was the Fatah candidate, Mr. Haniyeh had 70 per cent support versus 22 per cent for the unpopular incumbent.)

Mr. Barghouti is unique in Palestinian politics in that he appeals to Hamas members who respect the role he played in the first and second intifadas, or uprisings, against Israel’s decades-old occupation of Palestinian lands. In prison, the 64-year-old Mr. Barghouti also developed personal ties with the Hamas leadership – including Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas figure in Gaza and the mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks.

For precisely those reasons, many Israelis loathe the idea of releasing Mr. Barghouti, who was convicted in 2002 on five counts of murder stemming from his position as the leader of Tanzim, a militant offshoot of Fatah, and sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Barghouti was left out of a 2011 prisoner swap that saw 1,000 Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Hamas freeing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from captivity in Gaza. Mr. Sinwar was among those released instead.

But with pressure mounting on Mr. Netanyahu to accept a deal that would bring at least some of the Israeli hostages home from Gaza – and open the door to future hostage releases if the ceasefire holds – Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported this week that the Prime Minister was considering proposals that he previously dismissed.

While the Haaretz report didn’t mention any specific Palestinian prisoners by name, Uriel Abulof, an associate professor of political science at Tel Aviv University, said he believed that most Israelis would accept releasing Mr. Barghouti as part of deal that freed hostages. However, Gershon Baskin, a veteran peace negotiator who took part in the talks to free Mr. Shalit, told The Globe he believed Mr. Netanyahu would try to veto Mr. Barghouti’s release.

There were reports that Mr. Barghouti, who was moved into isolation after Oct. 7, was badly beaten in March in his cell inside the Ayalon-Ramla prison. The U.S. has reportedly asked Israel to investigate the claims, which Israel’s prison service have denied.

Though he hasn’t been allowed a family visit since before Oct. 7, Muqbel Barghouti says his older brother would be unbroken by intimidation attempts. After two decades of waiting, he believes that Marwan will be home soon.

“It’s not an elective option for them – the Israelis will be forced to release him,” he said, referring to the ceasefire negotiations. He said his brother intends to return to the West Bank and will not accept a deal that sees him released into exile.

Mr. Barghouti’s potential release would immediately change the dynamics of Palestinian politics, creating a new centre of attention that is neither the militant Hamas, which calls in its charter for the destruction of Israel, nor the placid Mr. Abbas, who has done little to challenge the Israeli military occupation during his 19 years in power.

“People want to see a complete and drastic change,” said Saif Aqel, vice-president of Fatah’s youth wing. “Marwan might not have a magic stick, but he’s a unifying person. And people know he would sacrifice everything to achieve the Palestinian unity. He would do everything to try to change the dynamics of relations between the PLO and the PA in relations with Israel, because it’s not acceptable actually, to maintain in this status quo.”

Mr. Barghouti was himself the leader of Fatah’s youth wing during the first intifada of the late 1980s, which was marked by young stone-throwing Palestinians confronting the Israeli troops occupying Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. After the failure of the peace processes of the 1990s, Mr. Barghouti turned to armed resistance for the second intifada. He refused to enter a plea at his 2002 trial, refusing to recognize the Israeli court’s authority to judge him.

In 2012, during a rare appearance in an open courtroom, he told journalists that he supported a peace deal with Israel that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Ami Ayalon, the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, has called for Mr. Barghouti to be released since he is the only figure Israel can negotiate a lasting peace with.

Muqbel Barghouti said that before Oct. 7, his brother was occasionally visited in prison by left-wing Israeli parliamentarians to discuss his vision for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

He said his brother is aware of the comparisons with Mr. Mandela, who led the armed wing of the African National Congress during its struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and who then spent 27 years in jail before emerging from prison to lead the negotiations that brought an end to white-minority rule.

Marwan Barghouti is an admirer of Mr. Mandela’s writings, including a passage in which the onetime president wrote that it is the stronger side in a conflict that determines how the weaker side must resist. Muqbel said it will be Israel’s actions that determine whether his brother, if released, will emerge from prison calling for peace talks or for armed struggle.

Either way, the aim would be the same, he said. “It has to be understood that there will be no peace, no tranquility, in the Middle East without a Palestinian state.”