Washington, Tel Aviv oppose release of Marwan Barghouti

OCCUPIED PALESTINE, March 26 (YPA) – The United States and the occupying Zionist entity have opposed the release of Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti, a prominent leader in the Fatah movement, according to the newspaper “Arabi 21.”

According to the newspaper, Hamas wants to release Barghouti, who has been in Israeli occupation prisons since 2002 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The newspaper attributed the refusal of the United States and Tel Aviv to release him to the physical attacks he was subjected to in the occupation prisons.

Barghouti began his activist life early. He was arrested for the first time in 1976, and then the occupation re-arrested him for the second time in 1978 and for the third time in 1983.

His repeated arrests and confrontation with the occupation constituted a turning point. After his release in 1983, Barghouti joined Birzeit University and was elected president of the Student Council for three consecutive years.

Barghouti worked to establish the Fatah Youth Movement, until the occupation re-arrested him again in 1984 for several weeks, and also in 1985, when his detention continued for 50 days, during which he was subjected to harsh investigation, and house arrest was imposed on him in the same year, and he was administratively detained in the same year.

In 1986, the occupation began to pursue him until he was arrested and deported, and he worked alongside the martyr commander Abu Jihad.

At the Fifth General Conference of the Fatah movement in 1989, he was elected a member of the movement’s Revolutionary Council and returned to his homeland in April 1994. He was elected as deputy to the martyr leader Faisal Al-Husseini and secretary of the Fatah movement in the West Bank to begin a new phase of organizational and struggle work.

Barghouti took the initiative to rebuild the Fatah movement’s organization in the West Bank until he was elected in 1966 as a member of the Fatah Legislative Council, where he was its youngest member.

YPA