Sources: Marwan Barghouthi will probably run for President

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Informed sources told QNN that there are several names suggested to running for the Presidential elections next May, including the prominent Fatah leader, who has been held in Israeli jails for 20 years so far, Marwan Barghouthi.

Sources close to Barghouthi told QNN that he would probably run for President for several reasons; including replicating the experience of having a political leader, who fights from jail, fighting marginalization that he has been subjected to by the Palestinian Authority, and highlighting his cause as a political leader and a presidential candidate detained in Israeli jails.

QNN talked to the family of Al Barghouthi, however, they did neither confirmed nor denied the news.

Marwan Barghouti, born in the West Bank village of Kobar in 1962, is a prominent and popular political figure associated with Fatah, currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison. He is a member of the Fatah Central Committee, and of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Often described by Palestinians as the ‘Palestinian Mandela’ he is viewed as one of the strongest leadership candidates to succeed Abbas.

In the run-up to the First Intifada, Barghouti was a student leader at Bir Zeit University involved in popular protests. He was deported by Israel to Jordan in May 1987 and was only allowed to return to the West Bank in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords.

The following year, in 1994, he became secretary-general of Fatah in the West Bank. During the Second Intifada, he led Fatah’s faction and allegedly directed military attacks against Israeli targets. Israel also accuses him of establishing the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AMB) at the time.

Barghouti was arrested and sentenced by an Israeli military court in 2002 to five consecutive life sentences for orchestrating attacks on Israelis.

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