The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-detainees and the “Free Marwan Barghouti” campaign said that the agents of Israeli internal intelligence agency Shin Bet and guards of Hadarim Prison, near central Israeli city Netanya, raided Barghouti’s room and thoroughly searched it.
The sources said that “after three hours of search, Marwan was transferred to solitary confinement.”
The campaign said the move came after the jailed leader urged the Palestinians to take to the streets in September to support the Palestinian leadership in its bid obtain recognition of an independent state from the United Nations.
On Wednesday, Barghouti said in a letter sent from prison that demonstrations in the Palestinian territories, Arab and Islamic world and major capitals are needed “to win September’s battle.”
The Fatah leader said that declaring the independence through the United Nations “was not the battle of President Mahmoud Abbas alone. It is the battle of all Palestinians, Arabs and (all) freeborn people.”
“I call on our people in the homeland and in the Diaspora to go out in a peaceful, million-man march during the week of voting in the United Nations in September,” he said.
Barghouti, who has headed every prisoner release list demanded by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in negotiations with Israel, was sentenced in an Israeli court to five life sentences in 2004 for masterminding attacks that killed five Israelis and wounded many more.
He had been frequently mentioned in recent years as a possible alternative to Abbas in the future as polls have ranked him as the third most popular choice for leadership. He was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in absentia in 2006 and is seen by many Palestinians as a national hero and the most popular figure on the Palestinian street.
In 2006, Barghouti was involved in shaping what became known as “the Palestinian prisoners’ document,” which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders and for the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees. It was signed by prisoners representing of all major Palestinian factions, including Hamas.
The Palestinians want the recognition of their state on the lands that Israel has occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel and the United States oppose this move as a unilateral measure.
The Palestinians decided to move to the UN after US-brokered peace talks broke down last year. The Palestinians walked out from the negotiations in protest of Israel’s decision to resume construction in West Bank Jewish settlements.
However, Abbas said Wednesday that the Palestinians “know conclusively that we’ll return to the negotiating table to reach the best solution with Israel.”
Abbas said that efforts to seek recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September “will not be detrimental to peace nor to negotiations that we want to continue to have.”
“Whatever happens and whatever the reaction and the result of our action in the UN, we know conclusively that we will return to the negotiating table to reach the best solutions with the Israelis,” Abbas said while in Spain as part of a tour to gather support for the statehood bid.
Separately, Israeli forces operating in West Bank on early Thursday arrested sixteen “wanted” Palestinian activists, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
The Palestinian sources said that the nine Palestinians were arrested in Hebron and nearby towns of Tarqoumya and Al-Dahriyeh. The sources said that the Israeli soldiers arrested a Palestinian in Nablus, two in the Dhaisheh refugee camp, to the south of Bethlehem and the other three in Jenin.
The sources said that they were arrested after the Israeli security forces carried a thorough search in their houses, and confiscated several computers.
Israeli defense establishment says the almost daily arrest campaigns in Palestinian territories are part of its war against Palestinian armed groups.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) says that the Israeli raids hinder its security forces to tighten their grip on the Palestinian territories.
Israel does not allow the PA to have any security role in specific areas in the West Bank that the 1993 Oslo peace agreement between the two sides classified as C areas.
