Video emerged yesterday of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister and a violent Kahanist, visiting Palestinian Legislative Council member Marwan Barghouti in prison and issuing threats. In the video, which circulated on social media on Thursday night, Aug. 14, Ben-Gvir tells Barghouti: “Whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will obliterate them. You will not defeat us.”
Marwan Barghouti’s son Qassam Barghouti told Middle East Eye that his family feels a grave threat to his father’s life, particularly after this latest footage. “There has been an ongoing approach for two years to threaten and assault him. He was attacked for the first time two years ago at the beginning of the war and was wounded to varying degrees,” Qassam Barghouti said. “It is clear today from the threat of National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, who represents the highest Israeli security hierarchy, that there is a real danger to his life.”
Qassam Barghouti said it is “clear that there is direct threat to assassinate and kill him inside his cell” and that the targeting and abuse of Palestinian prisoners is part of the genocide that Israel is waging in the Gaza Strip. MEE cited Israeli media reporting that Ben-Gvir was visiting Tel Aviv’s Gannot prison with prisons service commissioner Kobi Yaakobi “to closely monitor the worsening of the imprisoned terrorists’ conditions.”
Awni Almashni, a former Fatah candidate backed by Barghouti, told MEE after the release of the video that “Ben-Gvir believes he is insulting the Palestinian people with this display.”
“But the Palestinian people and all of Marwan’s fans are proud of Marwan Barghouti’s legendary steadfastness, his great stances, and his refusal to back down in the face of the occupation’s brutality,” he said. “The will for freedom that Marwan represents will not be broken by the tyranny, injustice and arrogance.”
