National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the cell of prominent Palestinian terror convict Marwan Barghouti and appeared to taunt him in footage published Thursday on social media that drew outrage from the Palestinian Authority.
“You won’t win. Whoever messes with the Nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women — we will wipe them out. You should know this, [this happened] throughout history,” Ben Gvir can be heard telling a gaunt-looking Barghouti.
It was the first sighting of Barghouti in over a decade. His family says he has been placed in solitary confinement since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught and has several times been brutally beaten by guards — charges that the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) has denied.
As Ben Gvir speaks, Barghouti can be seen nodding and trying to interject, but the short clip ends before he does.
Standing next to Ben Gvir during the visit is IPS chief Kobi Yaakobi, a close ally of the national security minister who is accused of illegally informing another senior officer that he was being investigated for covering up settler violence in the West Bank.
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Barghouti, 66, has been incarcerated since 2002 and was convicted and sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years for his role in planning attacks that led to the deaths of five civilians during the Second Intifada.
يواجه الأسير القائد مروان البرغوثي ظروفًا إنسانية بالغة القسوة في زنزانته الانفرادية، حيث فقد أكثر من نصف وزنه نتيجة الإهمال الطبي المتعمد وسوء المعاملة. وفي الوقت نفسه، يواصل وزير أمن الاحتلال المتطرف إيتمار بن غفير تهديده بشكل مباشر، في محاولة لكسر إرادته وصموده.
في الفيديو بن… pic.twitter.com/ZcpRmLgGgT
— المركز الفلسطيني للدفاع عن الاسرى (@PalPrisonersA) August 14, 2025
He is nevertheless popular among Palestinians and regarded as a potential successor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He is a senior member of the PA’s ruling Fatah party. Palestinians have long sought his release, including through hostage deals, but Jerusalem has resisted the notion of freeing him.
Hussein al-Sheikh, Abbas’s deputy, condemned the video as “the height of psychological, moral, and physical terrorism practiced against prisoners and a violation of international and humanitarian conventions and norms.”
“This represents an unprecedented escalation in the occupation’s policy against Palestinian prisoners, necessitating the immediate intervention of international organizations and institutions to protect them,” he said in a statement.
Fatah terror chief Marwan Barghouti, serving five life terms for murder during the Second Intifada, appears in a Jerusalem court, January 25, 2012. (Flash90)
Barghouti’s wife Fadwa, who has led an international campaign aimed at securing his release, said she didn’t recognize her husband in the clip.
“Maybe part of me doesn’t want to acknowledge everything your face and body express, and what you and the other prisoners have endured,” she said in a statement.
“They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you even in the solitary cell you’ve lived in for two years,” she continued. “The occupation and its figures are still locked in conflict with you, the shackles still on your hands — but I know your spirit and your resolve, and I know you will remain free, free, free.”
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