The wife of prominent Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002, said that a prison guard shot him in the leg with a rubber bullet last week. The Israeli Prison Service denied this.
Lawyer Fadwa Barghouti said in a post on her official Facebook page on Monday, “One of the prison guards fired a rubber bullet at Marwan’s leg, causing him bleeding and a painful injury, in a new episode of the ongoing attacks against him.
Marwan Barghouti, 67, enjoys widespread popularity in Palestinian opinion polls, and many Palestinians consider him a symbol of the national struggle, while he has been in Israeli prisons for more than two decades.
His supporters call him the “Palestinian Mandela,” while Israel says he is serving five life sentences after being convicted for attacks during the Second Palestinian Intifada.
His son, Arab al-Barghouti, said on Monday that the incident occurred “sometime last week” in Ganot prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel, noting that his father had not received treatment for the injury.
He explained that the family learned of the incident through Marwan's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, a prominent Israeli civil rights lawyer.
Feldman said in a letter to the Israeli Prison Service, “My client complained that he had been shot in the leg” when we spoke during my last visit to him.
The Israeli Prison Service claimed that talk of Barghouti being injured was “false and baseless,” and that its staff operates in accordance with the law and under continuous judicial supervision.
Last October, Arab al-Barghouthi said his father was severely beaten by Israeli guards while being transferred between prisons in September, resulting in four broken ribs and a head injury.
In a video he shared on social media in August 2025, far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared threatening Marwan Barghouti, who looked frail in prison.
The Arab League, in a statement issued on Sunday, called for the formation of an international commission of inquiry into the “repeated attacks” on Barghouti, and for “bringing the perpetrators to international trial.”
In October 2025, Israel ruled out releasing Barghouti as part of a prisoner exchange deal involving Israeli detainees in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners. He was re-elected to the Fatah Central Committee last May, receiving the highest number of votes.
