Israel's Fear of a Repeat of Sinwar's Experience

TEHRAN (Defapress) - The name of "Marwan Barghouti", the most popular Palestinian figure, is not among the prisoners that Israel intends to release in exchange for the hostages freed by Hamas. Israel has also refused to free other prominent prisoners whose release Hamas has long demanded, although the list of approximately 250 significant prisoners to be released has not yet been finalized.

Hamas senior official Mousa Abu Marzook, in an interview with Al Jazeera, stated that the group insists on the release of Barghouti and other prominent figures and is still negotiating with mediators.

Barghouti is popular among all Palestinian factions and even among a large number of Jews, and he could be the leader who unites Hamas and Fatah. Marwan Barghouti also has many friends in the Israeli left wing and, due to his years in Israeli prison, is fluent in Hebrew.

Israel fears Barghouti's release because he, while supporting armed resistance against occupation, was an advocate of the two-state solution and could immediately become a unifying figure for Palestinians upon his release. Palestinians consider him their Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who later became the country's first Black president.

Although Marwan Barghouti is considered one of the main leaders of the Fatah movement and a main rival of Hamas, Hamas leaders have repeatedly tried to secure his release in the past, but Israel has refused to free him in previous exchanges as well. Hamas had previously offered to exchange him and several other Palestinian prisoners for "Gilad Shalit."

Israel is also worried about repeating the experience of freeing Yahya Sinwar in the 2011 exchange; someone who later became the mastermind of the October 7th attack and subsequently rose to the leadership of Hamas.

The Legendary Popularity of Mahmoud Abbas's Successor

Barghouti, 66, is one of the few consensus figures in Palestinian politics and is known as the potential successor to Mahmoud Abbas, the elderly and unpopular president of the Palestinian Authority. Polls have consistently shown Barghouti to be the most popular Palestinian leader.

He was born in 1959 in the village of Kobar in the West Bank and studied History and Political Science at Birzeit University. During his student years, Barghouti played an active role in anti-occupation protests and, in the First Intifada, which began in December 1987, he was recognized as one of the main organizers. Israel exiled him to Jordan, but in the 1990s, under the framework of interim peace agreements that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, he returned to the West Bank.

With the start of the Second Intifada, Israel accused Barghouti, who was then the head of the Fatah movement in the West Bank, of leading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group affiliated with Fatah that played a role in attacks against Israelis.

Barghouti never commented on his connection to this group. While calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, he insisted that Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against expanding settlements and the violence of the Israeli army.

In a 2002 article for the Washington Post, he wrote: "I am not a terrorist, but I am not a pacifist either." In 2004, Barghouti was sentenced to 5 life terms for convictions related to attacks that killed 5 people in Israel.

A Unifying Figure in Prison

During his time in prison, Barghouti has been able to build bridges between Palestinian factions and even communicate with Israelis. A few years ago, he led a 40-day hunger strike by over 1,500 Palestinian prisoners to improve conditions in Israeli prisons. Barghouti is recognized as an authoritative national figure who could lead the Palestinians, something Abbas has failed to do.

Israel seeks to prevent this, as its long-standing policy has been to sow division among Palestinians and weaken the Abbas government. Furthermore, Mahmoud Abbas himself feels threatened by Barghouti's release. At the same time, Barghouti has no connection to the widespread corruption in the Palestinian Authority, an issue that has disillusioned many Palestinians with Abbas and his government.

Barghouti was last seen in August when Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's far-right National Security Minister, published a video of himself warning Barghouti in prison, saying: "Israel will confront and destroy anyone who acts against the country."

Who is Israel Releasing?

With the start of the truce and the withdrawal of occupying forces from Gaza, which took effect on Friday, Hamas is supposed to hand over 20 live Israeli hostages by Monday, and Israel, in return, will release 250 Palestinian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment and approximately 1,700 detainees held without trial from the past two years.

Most individuals on the list of Palestinian prisoners are members of Hamas and Fatah who were arrested in the 2000s. Many of them were convicted for involvement in shootings, bombings, or attacks that led to the killing or injuring of Israeli settlers and soldiers. According to the list, more than half of them will be sent to Gaza or exiled outside the Palestinian territories after their release.

The 2000s witnessed the beginning of the Second Palestinian Intifada, an uprising that formed in response to the continued occupation despite years of peace negotiations and turned violent. Palestinian armed groups killed hundreds of Israelis, and the Israeli army killed thousands of Palestinians.

One of the prisoners to be released is Iyad Abu Rab, a commander of Islamic Jihad. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for planning bombing operations in Israel between 2003 and 2005 that killed 13 people.

The oldest prisoner on the release list is Samir Abu Nimeh, 64, a member of the Fatah movement who was arrested in the West Bank in 1986 and sentenced to life imprisonment for bombing. The youngest prisoner is Muhammad Abu Qteish, who in 2022 at the age of 16 received a life sentence for attempting a knife attack.