The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the prison cell of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian political leader imprisoned since 2002.
In a statement released on Friday, Hamas said Ben-Gvir’s threat to Barghouti in the jail cell was “a cowardly display that reveals the occupation’s fascism and hostility to all human values”.
Ben-Gvir has posted video footage in which he is seen taunting Barghouti in jail.
The intimidating message has drawn condemnation from the Palestinian resistance groups, rights advocates and political officials, who view it as a direct threat to Barghouti’s life.
Hamas said the vicious move by the hawkish Israeli minister will “strengthen the unity of the prisoner movement in the face of the policies of systematic repression and abuse practiced by the occupation’s prison administration”.
“This criminal behavior is an extension of the war crimes committed in the Sde Teiman prison, which witnessed horrific violations against prisoners, including doctors, nurses, and journalists,” the statement added.
The resistance movement called on the UN and other international bodies to take urgent action to provide support to prisoners held in Sde Teiman and other notorious prisons.
Israeli authorities earlier said they had begun transferring prisoners from Sde Teiman, a former military base in the Negev desert, after rights groups demanded the closure of the site.
Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq also condemned the far-right Israeli minister's visit to the jail cell of Barghouti.
“There is no longer any meaning to brutality except in the form of one of the leaders of this inhumane entity,” he wrote on Telegram.
“A Zionist minister gathers his army, his guards, and the blood of his state and stands before a captive leader, shackled and isolated in solitary confinement, barely able to stand, and addresses him, saying: ‘You will not triumph over us!'” al-Risheq said.
The Hamas official said that desperate remarks by Ben-Gvir show Israel's failures during the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.
“If Ben-Gvir had been victorious in Gaza, he would not have said what he said. But this is the arrogance of a criminal who failed to achieve his goal, whose prestige was defeated, and whose reputation was tarnished by the shame of the ages,” he said.
