This morning, Oct. 8, Hamas spokesman Abdulrahman Shadid issued a statement reporting that “The Movement submitted to the mediators a list of the names of the prisoners whom Hamas demands be released from the occupation prisons, prepared according to precise humanitarian and national standards.”
At the center of the prisoner issue is Marwan Barghouti, who has been languishing in an Israeli prison for more than 20 years, but is widely seen as the most unifying figure among Palestinians and the most popular choice to be the President of a future Palestinian state. Hamas has been demanding the release of Barghouti, along with other senior Palestinian leaders, among them Ahmad Sa’adat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abdullah Barghouti, a senior commander of the Qassam Brigades, reported Jeremy Scahill of Dropsite News. Israel has so far refused to even consider releasing these and other high-level Palestinian leaders from its prisons.
