Awad Rajoob and Mohammad Sio
30 April 2025•Update: 30 April 2025
RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL
Abdullah Barghouti, a Palestinian detainee in Israel’s Gilboa Prison, endures “systematic attempts to liquidate him” through severe torture, leading to recurring comas, the Hamas-run Prisoners' Media Office said Tuesday.
Barghouti’s health has deteriorated to a “critical stage,” posing a direct threat to his life, the office said in a statement.
It said the latest information from inside the prison indicates that Barghouti has been severely beaten, leaving his body covered in bruises, his head swollen with blood clots, his eyes inflamed, and his ribs fractured, preventing him from sleeping.
Barghouti, originally from the town of Beit Rima near Ramallah in the West Bank, also holds Jordanian citizenship. He is serving the longest sentence in Israeli prisons — 67 life terms — and is a senior commander in the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing. Israeli forces arrested him in 2003.
The office said that Israeli suppression units led by an officer named Amir repeatedly raid Barghouti’s cell and beat him until he bleeds.
After the beatings, dogs are reportedly unleashed to attack his bloodied body, with the officer saying “let the dogs have their fun,” the office said.
It added that “after each round of torture, guards pour hot dishwashing liquid over Barghouti’s weakened body to intensify his pain.”
The statement said Barghouti has also been subjected to verbal abuse. According to the office, the officer told him: “You were once a leader; now you are nothing. You must die.”
The office emphasized that due to the torture, “Barghouti falls into repeated comas, his hands bound with garbage bags and cardboard toilet rolls due to the absence of proper medical protection.”
Barghouti cannot sleep normally and is forced to sit hunched over from severe pain. He has not bathed for 12 days and can only eat by soaking bread in water, as he is unable to chew, the office reported.
The office described the treatment of Barghouti as a “deliberate slow assassination” and a “gross violation of all international norms and conventions.”
Israeli authorities have not yet commented on the office’s statement.
The report comes amid heightened Israeli crackdowns on Palestinian prisoners during Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, where rights groups report increased cases of abuse, beatings, torture and deprivation of food.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, these conditions have resulted in the deaths of 65 prisoners.
As of early April, more than 9,900 Palestinians were being held in Israeli prisons, including around 400 children and 27 women.
More than 52,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
