Barghouti said beaten, suffered broken ribs in jail; prison officials reject claim
Ben Gvir says he is ‘proud that Barghouti’s conditions have changed drastically’ as Thunberg alleges ‘torture,’ claims guards kicked and hit her as she was draped in Israeli flag
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Prominent Palestinian security prisoner Marwan Barghouti suffered four broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards last month, Palestinian media outlets reported on Wednesday.
The former Fatah leader was allegedly beaten while being transferred between detention facilities in mid-September, from Ramon to Megiddo prison, according to a statement from the Hamas-linked Prisoners’ Information Office.
Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees the Israel Prison Service as national security minister, denied the allegations, but in the same breath said he was “proud that Barghouti’s conditions have changed drastically” during his tenure.
“The murderer Barghouti knows that today, terrorists like him are dealt with firmly, which is why he invents fake news in an attempt to rouse his loathsome terrorist comrades who left him behind in the deal,” said the far-right minister in a statement.
Replying to a request for comment, the Israel Prison Service called the claims false. “The Israel Prison Service operates in accordance with the law while protecting the safety and health of all prisoners,” the agency said.
Barghouti, seen by many Palestinians as a potential successor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has been incarcerated since 2002. He is serving five cumulative life terms plus 40 years in prison for helping plan attacks during the Second Intifada that killed five civilians.
Barghouti has denied the charges against him and has also rejected the Israeli court’s jurisdiction to try him as a member of the PA’s parliament.
Hamas negotiators pressed hard to have Barghouti freed in a recent hostage-prisoner exchange that saw the terror group hand over the remaining 20 living hostages in exchange for 1,968 Palestinian detainees, but they ultimately failed to secure his release.
Rights groups, legal aid organizations and lawyers have many times accused Israel’s Prison Service of mistreating Palestinian detainees.
In September, the High Court of Justice ruled that the state was failing to fulfill its legal obligations to adequately feed Palestinian inmates and ordered IPS to take steps to provide such prisoners with enough food “to enable a basic existence.”
Thunberg claims she underwent ‘torture’ in Israeli custody
Meanwhile, lawyers for activists detained for trying to break Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza while on board the Global Sumud Flotilla last week leveled similar claims against the prison service — claiming activists were beaten and kept in dismal conditions.
Pro-Palestine activist Greta Thunberg alleged in a Wednesday interview with the Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper that she underwent “torture” while detained at southern Israel’s Ketziot prison earlier this month.
“I saw maybe 50 people sitting in a row on their knees with handcuffs and their foreheads against the ground,” the Swedish activist claimed. “They [guards] dragged me to the opposite side from where the others were sitting, and I had the [Israeli] flag around me the whole time. They hit and kicked me.”
“Then they ripped off my frog hat, threw it on the ground, stomped and kicked it, and kind of threw a tantrum,” she added.
She also claimed that 60 people were put into a small outdoor cage at one point on the prison grounds and were taunted by guards as they begged for water in the scorching heat.
“The guards walked in front of the bars the whole time, laughing and holding up their water bottles. They threw the bottles with water in them into the trash cans in front of us,” she asserted.
“When people fainted, we banged on the cages and asked for a doctor. Then the guards came and said, ‘We’re going to gas you.’ It was standard for them to say that. They held up a gas cylinder and threatened to press it against us,” she claimed.
Thunberg was deported from Israel for the second time on October 6, days after being detained on the flotilla.
Together with the interview, the newspaper published an image of Thunberg opening up her suitcase, on which the words “Whore Greta” are written along with a drawing of an Israeli flag and a penis. She said the suitcase was confiscated by the IDF and returned to her like that.
Ahead of the activists’ deportation, the Foreign Ministry denied claims that Israel was mistreating Thunberg and other detained activists on the intercepted flotilla.
The IPS has also denied claims that Thunberg was mistreated and forced to hold an Israeli flag while in prison, saying the agency was “unaware of such an incident.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.