AhlulBayt News Agency: The Asra Media Office reported on Monday that Palestinian prisoner and Hamas leader Abdullah Barghouti has endured extreme physical and psychological torture since his arrest on March 5, 2003, in Israel’s Gilboa Prison.
In its statement, the office emphasized that the abuse inflicted on Barghouti, 53, amounts to “a slow execution” targeting one of the most prominent figures of the Palestinian Captive Movement, warning that his life is in imminent danger.
The office revealed that for more than 25 months, prison authorities have carried out systematic assaults against him. Guards storm his cell day and night with dogs, telling him they “missed beating him,” before restraining him and striking him with batons, leaving him bleeding and wounded. Fellow prisoners are forced to treat him with torn clothing and basic cleaning materials.
Barghouti, who is serving 67 life sentences, suffers from untreated injuries: fractures in his right elbow and hand lasting over three months, a broken finger on his left hand, two fractured ribs, torn tendons, and a drastic weight loss of about 35 kilograms due to starvation and poor nutrition.
The statement added that guards poured water on him before electrocuting him, and confined him in a cell infested with scabies, causing painful boils across his body. He now sleeps on the floor to avoid further infection.
Barghouti currently struggles to move his hands, with one nearly paralyzed, while Israeli prison authorities deny him medical treatment, even painkillers, and block human rights organizations from contacting him.
The office stressed that Barghouti’s ordeal is part of an open war against the leadership of the Captive Movement, describing the abuse as a deliberate attempt to kill him, and called for urgent international intervention.
Meanwhile, last Monday the Israeli Knesset’s General Assembly approved in its first reading a bill allowing the execution of Palestinian prisoners, sending it to committee for further votes. Rights groups warn the law could be applied retroactively, endangering hundreds of detainees.
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