‘My Father is Bleeding’: Israeli Guard Shoots Marwan Barghouti at Point-Blank Range

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Marwan Barghouti was shot in the leg at point-blank range by an Israeli prison guard and denied medical treatment, his family said.

Key Developments

  • An Israeli prison guard fired a rubber bullet at Marwan Barghouti’s leg from point-blank range, causing injury and bleeding.

  • His son said Barghouti was not taken to a hospital and received no medication despite his deteriorating health.

  • Fatah warned that repeated assaults, isolation and medical neglect amount to a policy of “slow execution” against the imprisoned leader.

An Israeli prison guard shot senior Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti in the leg with a rubber bullet at point-blank range, leaving him wounded and bleeding inside prison without medical treatment, according to his family.

Arab Barghouti, the imprisoned Fatah leader’s son, said Monday that his father’s health had deteriorated following a series of attacks inside Israeli prisons.

“My father is bleeding inside the prison and is prohibited from receiving treatment,” he told Al-Ghad television, adding that Israeli forces had assaulted him repeatedly.

According to the family, Barghouti was neither transferred to a hospital nor provided with medication after the latest attack.

His wife, attorney Fadwa Barghouti, said the family learned of the shooting following his most recent prison visit.

She said a guard fired the rubber bullet directly at his leg from zero distance, causing a wound and bleeding.

The assault came as the Israel Prison Service issued what the family described as an incitement report against Barghouti and as the international campaign demanding his release continued to expand.

Deteriorating Health

Arab Barghouti said his father had lost approximately ten kilograms due to worsening prison conditions and severe restrictions on the food provided to Palestinian detainees.

Despite his declining health, he said Barghouti remained in high spirits and continued to display a strong will.

His son added that the imprisoned leader remained aware of the scale of the sacrifices being made by Palestinians under Israeli occupation and continued to stand by his political positions.

Barghouti has been held in isolation at Ganot Prison alongside several other leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since November 2023, after being repeatedly transferred between isolation sections.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Media Office said he had been subjected to approximately seven severe assaults since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023.

Those attacks caused fractured ribs and multiple other injuries, according to Palestinian prisoners’ institutions.

The office said a previous assault took place in September 2025, after Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered Barghouti’s cell and directly threatened him.

The Arab League has also said that a stun grenade was thrown into his cell approximately two months ago, causing burns to his hand.

‘Slow Execution’

For its part, the Fatah movement warned that the escalating attacks posed a genuine threat to Barghouti’s life.

The movement spokesperson Abdul Fattah Dawla said the treatment of Barghouti had “exceeded all limits” and exposed a systematic policy of revenge and “slow execution” against one of the most prominent Palestinian national leaders.

He said the latest shooting followed repeated physical attacks, prolonged solitary confinement and the denial of medical care.

Fatah held the Israeli government fully responsible for Barghouti’s life and said the ongoing public incitement led by Ben-Gvir made the government accountable for any further harm.

The movement called for urgent international intervention to prevent what it described as another crime inside Israeli prisons.

It also urged the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and the UN Human Rights Council to send independent investigative committees, provide international protection for Palestinian prisoners and end policies of torture, isolation and assault.

The popular campaign for Barghouti’s freedom similarly warned that Israeli authorities were attempting to assassinate him through repeated violence, isolation, medical neglect and harsh detention conditions.

International Calls for Action

The Arab League has demanded the formation of a special international committee to investigate the repeated assaults against Barghouti.

It also called for an independent medical visit, his transfer to a hospital outside the prison system, an end to systematic torture and his immediate release as a political prisoner.

Fadwa Barghouti said Israeli prison authorities had become increasingly angered by the official, popular and international response to the “Freedom for Marwan, Freedom for Palestine” campaign.

“What the occupation has failed to understand for a quarter of a century, and still does not understand today, is that Marwan has never retreated from his conviction that freedom is a right, that the occupation will end, and that resisting occupation and working for a just peace that ends it is a national and moral responsibility,” she said.

She added that incitement and physical attacks would not remove him from the consciousness of the Palestinian people or the conscience of supporters of freedom worldwide.

Nearly a Quarter-Century in Prison

Barghouti, born in 1959, is a member of Fatah’s Central Committee and a former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Israeli occupation forces arrested him in Ramallah on April 15, 2002.

An Israeli court later sentenced him to five life terms and an additional 40 years over his role during the Second Intifada.

Barghouti has rejected the authority of Israeli courts over Palestinians living under occupation.

He remains one of the most prominent and popular Palestinian political figures and has repeatedly been proposed for inclusion in prisoner exchange agreements.

Israel refused to release him under the Al-Aqsa Flood prisoner exchange agreement despite continuing Palestinian and international demands.

Fatah said targeting Barghouti was an attack on the broader Palestinian national will and would only deepen popular commitment to the struggle for prisoners’ freedom.

The movement warned that Palestinian prisons had become sites of torture, deprivation and killing, and called for a wider political, legal and media campaign in defense of Barghouti and all Palestinian detainees.

(Al-Arabi, Al-Ghad, AJA, PC)

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Caption for photo: Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti. (Photo: Free Marawan Now, X)

Water Fact – July 13, 2026

One of the methods the Israeli army has used to force Palestinian farmers off their land is to seal off their water wells and natural springs with concrete.  It appears indifferent to the ecological implications of its actions in a region which, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “is slated to be disproportionately affected by climate change.”

 

Carnegie’s report issued on May 14, 2026 outlines Palestinian efforts to design a national strategy for climate change when faced with the constraints of barriers, walls and checkpoints barring access to land, lack of control over resources and inability to expand the water, wastewater and electricity infrastructure.   A description of the context in which they are operating is worth quoting at length:

 

“The outlook for climate adaptation in Palestine is alarming. Today, only one in ten Gazans has access to potable water, and in the West Bank, 42 percent of the population is living under extreme vulnerability to climate effects.   Combined with trends of reduced precipitation and increased emissions that severely weaken Palestine’s water and food systems, the ongoing Israeli occupation further complicates Palestine’s recovery and, far more, the possibility of a sustainable recovery that equally benefits Palestinians and Israelis.  Any water management rights allotted to Palestine in the Oslo Accords are essentially negated by Israel’s veto power, consequently allowing for Israel to overabstract water resources and further limiting Palestine’s water availability and quality. Israel controls over 80 percent of the water resources in Palestine that originate from the Mountain Aquifer and the Jordan Valley, which Palestine has no access to despite bordering the Jordan Valley and Mediterranean Sea. UN projections show that climate change coupled with human activities—including urbanization, population growth, and contamination of water and soil due to Isarel’s war in Gaza—will significantly disrupt Palestine’s water, energy, agricultural, and health sectors well beyond existing shortcomings. Furthermore, as a result of climate impacts and absent legal oversight on Israel’s overabstraction, the rate of water renewal—how fast water resources are replenished, through methods like runoff and rainfall—has decreased, not only for the water resources Palestine currently accesses but also across the surrounding region.”

 

Water-starved Jordan is meanwhile having to deal with Israel’s use of water as a foreign policy tool.  In a 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan, Israel agreed to provide its neighbor with 50 million cubic meters of subsidized water annually.  That amount was doubled in 2021 through commercial water sales in an agreement ending in late 2025, which Jordan is now trying to renew.  On July 12, 2026 The Times of Israel reported that Israel was reluctant to renew it because relations between the countries had chilled after the Gaza war, and that Israel has “reportedly conditioned the supply of the additional volume on Jordan moderating its relations towards Israel and restoring full diplomatic ties.”