Far-right Israeli minister pays surprise visit to jailed Palestinian leader
TEL AVIV (Reuters) -Israel's far-right national security minister visited prominent Palestinian Marwan Barghouti in jail and told him "you will not win", a video showed on Friday, a day after another hardline cabinet member vowed to "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.
Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir shared the video on his X account, also telling Barghouti - a potential unifying figure among Palestinians who has been jailed for more than two decades - that anyone who threatens Israel would be eliminated.
The prison visit took place earlier this week but became public after ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Thursday work would start on a settlement that would bisect the West Bank and further cut it off from East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as a capital for a future state.
"This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state. Simply because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise," Smotrich said at a news conference on Thursday.
In the video clip on Ben-Gvir's X which showed Barghouti looking thin and weak, the minister told him: "You will not win. Anyone who messes with the people of Israel, anyone who murders our children, anyone who murders our women - we will wipe him out."
"You have to know this, throughout history," he said in the 13-second clip which cut out Barghouti's reply.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesman for Ben-Gvir declined to comment.
The Palestinian Authority described Ben-Gvir's remarks as a "direct threat" to the 66-year-old. Barghouti is a senior member of the Fatah movement that runs the authority, which exercises limited civic rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns in the strongest terms the storming of the solitary confinement sections of Rimon Prison by extremist Minister Ben-Gvir and his direct threat to brother and leader Marwan Barghouti," it said in a statement.
Barghouti was sentenced in 2004 to five life sentences and 40 years in jail after a court convicted him of orchestrating ambushes and suicide attacks on Israelis during the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.
Israel regards Bargouthi as a dangerous militant over his part in the uprising, in which around 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians were killed. He has long denied the charges against him.
CONDEMNATION
His wife addressed him in a post on Facebook. "They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you, even in the solitary cell you've been living in for two years," she said of the visit.
Supporters of Barghouti say he is a top contender to succeed 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president one day, portraying him as a Nelson Mandela-like figure who could galvanise and reunite their divided political landscape.
A poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research published on May 6 showed he would secure 50% of the vote on a likely turnout of 64% in a three-way presidential race against Abbas and former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal.
Elections for the Palestinian Authority presidency have not been held since 2005.
Most world powers support the idea of a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict, with an independent Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem existing alongside Israel.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations broke down more than a decade ago and the Palestinians say increasing settlement expansion is eroding the viability of a future state by fragmenting the territory they seek for it.
The prospect of a two-state solution has receded further after Hamas' October 7 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Hamas says it is fighting for a Palestinian state but does not recognise Israel and its founding charter calls for Israel's elimination; Israel has the most far-right government in its history and the West Bank leadership is discredited among Palestinians for failing to halt settlement expansion.
The United Nations has ruled the settlements illegal, a view disputed by Israel. Smotrich's announcement on Thursday drew a chorus of international criticism.
Residents of West Bank village Atara said on Friday that their village was attacked by Israeli settlers who set fire to three cars and scrawled threatening graffiti on a wall. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elimam in Dubai and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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