Son Claims Jailed Palestinian Leader Marwan Barghouti Assaulted in Prison; Israeli Authorities Deny Allegations

The lawyer for Marwan Barghouti last visited him on April 12, 2026, and reported that the jailed Palestinian leader had been violently assaulted three times in recent weeks. Barghouti, 66, has lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) amid the alleged mistreatment, according to his son Arab Barghouti, who received the updates via the lawyer.

Israeli prison authorities described the allegations as false, recycled, and entirely without foundation, stating that the Israel Prison Service has no record of such events.

Arab Barghouti, 35, who lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah, has not seen his father for four years and has had no direct contact with him since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. ' Marwan Barghouti remains a rallying figure for Palestinians, with his images painted across many walls in the occupied West Bank and previously seen in Gaza before most of the Strip was destroyed by Israeli strikes in the war.

Sometimes called the 'Nelson Mandela of Palestine' by his supporters, he is Israel's most high-profile prisoner and has become a symbol of the Palestinian cause.

Al-Monitor reported that years of imprisonment have not diminished his popularity, and his son believes he represents unity and a future democratic renewal in Palestine. As one of the leaders of the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, Marwan Barghouti is often cited as a possible successor to the 90-year-old Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

A longtime member of Abbas' Fatah party, he is seen as one of the rare figures who could be accepted as leader by all Palestinian political factions, including Hamas militants.

Arab Barghouti said his father still believes in a two-state solution, understanding that 'the current Israeli government is killing the two-state solution deliberately. ' Israel has refused to release Marwan Barghouti in any of the prisoner exchanges since the Gaza war erupted.

An Israeli court sentenced him in June 2004 to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of involvement in four attacks that killed five people in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

He was jailed in 2002 when his son Arab Barghouti was 11 years old. Arab Barghouti dedicates his life to campaigning for his father's release and insists that his father has never given up hope, quoting him as saying 'hopelessness is a privilege that we don't have as Palestinians ... ' He described his father as 'my hero.

He's my role model, of course. But as a Palestinian, he gives me hope. ' Arab Barghouti also criticized the current Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian Authority, stating they are 'unfortunately not able to change what the Palestinian people are going through.