A handful of high-ranking Palestinian prisoners are at the center of negotiations in Egypt to reach a peace agreement in Gaza. At stake is not only the end of the war, because the release of these figures would have a direct and significant political impact on the future of the Palestinians, but also on Israeli domestic politics.
So much so that Tel Aviv - according to Israeli media - has vetoed some names, starting with the first 'special' prisoner on the list put by Hamas on the negotiating table in Sharm el Sheikh : 66-year-old Marwan Barghouti, the 'Palestinian Mandela', the senior leader of Fatah - the party of Yasser Arafat and the current president of the Palestinian National Authority, Abu Mazen - convicted on various counts for 33 attacks carried out by the armed wing of the organization during the second Intifada of 2000. Arrested in 2002, he is serving five life sentences plus 40 years in prison.
"You will not defeat us," because "we will wipe out anyone who tries to attack Israelis," far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir shouted at him during a prison visit last August, which was widely dismissed as a provocation . His name is considered a "red line" not only by Israeli hawks; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself considers Barghouti "a symbol of terrorism."
Meanwhile, according to many observers, on the Palestinian front, his release could spark a seismic shift within the Palestinian National Authority (PA), with Abbas stepping down and Barghouti being appointed PA president, who is leading in the polls even over the surviving Hamas leaders. His wife, Padwa, has left Ramallah for Cairo, a sign that something is indeed moving. Israel has also vetoed another name that has been recurring these days: Ahmad Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine , at the center of the standoff between Arafat and Tel Aviv that led to the Israeli siege of the PA headquarters in Ramallah in 2002. Imprisoned in Israel since 2006, the 70-year-old is serving a 30-year sentence for the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Zeevi, who was killed in 2001.
Hamas is also obviously demanding the release of its members, starting with Abdullah Barghouti, 53, known as "the engineer" because he is an explosives expert. He has been sentenced to 67 life sentences, the harshest ever handed down by an Israeli court, for several bomb attacks that killed dozens of civilians in the 2000s when he headed Hamas's military wing in the West Bank. Ibrahim Hamed, 60, is also a former leader of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, accused of killing nearly 100 Israelis in several attacks during the second Intifada. He too is serving dozens of life sentences. Also on the list are Abbas al-Sayyid and Hassan Salameh, the former sentenced to 35 life sentences and the latter to 46, accused of the hotel and bus bombings. And Nael Barghouti, Israel's longest-serving Palestinian political prisoner, first arrested in 1978.
(Unioneonline)