‘Palestine’s Mandela’ attacked in Israeli prison by guards

[Opinion: Yep, all Palestinians are terrorists like this guy. Let’s lock up anyone who can unify Palestinians. Can’t have that. /s Sorry, I had to embolden the travesty a country calling itself 'democratic has become'.]

Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti facing ‘escalating abuse’ in Israeli jails

‘Palestine’s Mandela’ suffers three recent attacks including assault where prison guards set a dog on him, lawyer says

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem

The Guardian:  15 Apr 2026

The jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is at immediate risk in Israeli jails, where he has been attacked three times in as many weeks, including in one assault last month where prison guards set a dog on the 66-year-old, his lawyer has said.

Barghouti is often called Palestine’s Nelson Mandela. He is respected across otherwise feuding Palestinian factions, has broad popular support across occupied Palestine, repeatedly engaged with Israeli officials before his detention and long backed a two-state solution.

On Wednesday, the 24th anniversary of his imprisonment, international celebrities including Cate Blanchett, Bryan Adams and Don Cheadle added their names to a high-profile demand for his release that is already backed by hundreds of cultural figures and former global leaders.

On the West Bank border wall

Barghouti’s trial for murder was criticised as flawed by legal experts, and Mandela himself reportedly described it as a legal attack on a legitimate political struggle. Barghouti was convicted of ordering attacks that killed civilians during the second intifada and has remained in jail since, spending long stretches in solitary confinement.

Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president after the end of apartheid, in 2002 told his lawyer Khader Shkirat: “What is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me. The government tried to de-legitimise the African National Congress and its armed struggle by putting me on trial.”

The Palestinian leader was seen in public footage for the first time in a decade last summer when the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir released a video of himself taunting a gaunt-looking Barghouti in jail.

His son, Arab Barghouti, later said the family feared for his life, after receiving reports that he had been beaten unconscious by eight Israeli prison guards. Family visits to the jail are barred, but former detainees released under a ceasefire deal provided evidence of the attack.