It is rare for an Israeli politician to visit a Palestinian prisoner. It is even more unusual for the visit to be publicised.
But when controversial national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir travelled to a high-security jail in central Israel in August, he posted about it on social media.
It was not a courtesy visit. Rather, it was a trip designed solely to taunt the most high-profile Palestinian prisoner languishing in Israeli solitary confinement.
"Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women, we will wipe them out," Ben-Gvir can be heard saying to Palestinian resistance leader Marwan Barghouti.
"You should know this, throughout history."
It was the first time Barghouti had been seen publicly in more than a decade. His family had not seen him for three years.
Gaunt and with white hair, years behind bars and in solitary confinement had aged the 66-year-old, leaving him almost unrecognisable from the defiant man once seen handcuffed and with arms raised in an Israeli courtroom in the early 2000s.
"We felt shocked," his son Arab Barghouti told the ABC from the family's home in Ramallah.
"It wasn't easy for the family to take minutes until we recognised if it's my father or not."
The video does not show whether Barghouti, convicted of terror offences, tried to reply to Ben-Gvir, a convicted terrorist.
But his son believes he would not have sat there and taken the berating from the far-right-wing Jewish nationalist.
"I'm sure he responded with a great response, that represents the Palestinian people and represents what we're all about," Arab Barghouti said.
"They have the audacity to come and taunt my father behind bars in a tiny cell … this is a bully move. It's unbelievably disgusting."
It is unclear whether Barghouti would be among the 250 Palestinians serving life sentences released under the Gaza peace plan, but he has previously featured on lists of prisoners Hamas wanted to see freed under any deal with Israel.
The Palestinian 'Nelson Mandela'
To appreciate why the Ben-Gvir stunt is significant, it helps to understand the position Marwan Barghouti holds in the echelons of Palestinian leaders.
He has repeatedly been likened to a Palestinian "Nelson Mandela" — indeed, a campaign to free him from jail was launched in Mandela's former cell in South Africa in 2013 — while The Economist last year described Barghouti as "the world's most important prisoner".
A leading figure in the Fatah political party, founded by Yasser Arafat, Barghouti had been imprisoned multiple times by Israeli authorities before being exiled in the late 1980s.
He returned to the West Bank in 1994 after the Oslo peace accords were signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council two years later.
Barghouti rose through the ranks to become Fatah's secretary-general, and was courted by leaders across the political and cultural divide — regularly meeting with Israeli politicians and security officials, as well as influential decision-makers from around the world.
When the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, began in September 2000, Barghouti was on the front line of demonstrations and rallies. There were multiple attempts to assassinate him in the process.
He had supported Palestinians attacking Israelis within the West Bank, but not Israel itself.
"My father has always been very consistent about his policies," Arab Barghouti said.
"Even in the Second Intifada and before and after, he was always against the targeting of civilians, he was always against random resistance.
"He is supportive of the Palestinian's rights of self defence according to the international law."
However, Israeli authorities accused him of orchestrating attacks between December 2000 and April 2002, including suicide bombings on Israeli soil.
They alleged he had coordinated and authorised these attacks through the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a coalition of armed groups that emerged during the Second Intifada. Israeli authorities also alleged Barghouti had founded and led the Brigades.
He denied all of the claims.
Barghouti still winning leadership polls
In 2002 Barghouti was arrested and hit with 26 charges of murder and attempted murder. In 2004, he was convicted of five counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for a failed car bombing in Jerusalem.
He was given five life sentences, plus another 40 years in jail.
Barghouti's family has always insisted the trial was a stitch-up.
"The judge called him a terrorist at the beginning of his trial," Arab Barghouti said.
"You're talking about a judge calling someone a terrorist before seeing the evidence, before seeing anything else."
The fairness of the trial has been scrutinised and criticised. His lawyers were prevented from meeting with him for long periods, most of the witnesses were not able to personally testify to his involvement, and the evidence wasn't shared with independent monitors, an Inter-Parliamentary Union report found.
His lawyers said the evidence, consisting mostly of documents seized from his office, did not link him to the crimes, the report said.
Arab Barghouti believes the case against his father was fabricated for political reasons.
"[Israel's] biggest danger is having a strong leader — an influential leader that speaks of what the international law and the international community accepts of, which is the two-state solution, which my father has been supportive of for more than 30 years."
In the decades since he was thrown in jail, support for the man has not waned — even though it has been hidden from view.
In 2006 he helped draft the so-called "Prisoner's Document" with other jailed Palestinian political leaders, including from Hamas, setting out how a coalition Palestinian government could operate.
Today, most Palestinians say Barghouti is the man they would like to lead them.
Polling by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) consistently puts Barghouti as the most popular candidate for president of the Palestinian Authority.
Data from May suggested the imprisoned leader would receive half of the popular vote if an election was held, with current President Mahmoud Abbas placing a distant third behind Hamas figure Khalid Mishal.
Barghouti has led the PSR polling across the West Bank and Gaza Strip for every quarter since September 2023, with the exception of the survey just after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
'Marwan has a vision'
One of Barghouti's most loyal lieutenants, Qadoura Fares, revealed his political rivals have been aware of his pull for many years.
Fares said before the 2005 Palestinian presidential elections, which Barghouti was planning to contest from behind bars, Mahmoud Abbas asked: "Please go and visit your friend to convince him not to run in the election."
Fares then met his long-time friend Barghouti in jail, spending more than two hours locked in a "hard discussion".
"He refused to stop his candidacy … and the discussion became somehow aggressive," Fares said.
"I told him, 'Marwan, let us imagine that on January 10, 2005, we wake up and find our new president, Marwan Barghouti, and you are in isolation.'
"'What could you do for the Palestinian people?' He looked to me and asked me, 'What could Abu Mazen do for the Palestinians?'"
Barghouti told him Abbas would never achieve anything in negotiations with Israel.
"He held my jacket, he told me 'Qadoura, they will give him nothing,'" Fares recalled.
Barghouti, however, did pull out of the race a month before the poll. Abbas went on to win the election. No election has been held since.
"Marwan has a vision and he is a serious person," Fares said.
"I feel that I made one of my big mistakes in my life when I accepted to convince him to stop his candidacy to run to the presidential election at that time."
Fares is convinced that Barghouti would romp to victory in any election now.
"It's very clear he will receive a huge majority. Maybe we will be close to the typical Arabic election," he quipped.
"All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, the communists, the Muslims, the secular, the Christians … they will elect Marwan."
'Not my Israel', former politician says
Former Israeli government minister, Haim Oron, was one of those leaders who saw the influence Barghouti wielded and met with him regularly before he was convicted.
The left-wing politician said he had to seek permission from then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to see Barghouti in jail, convincing him that open dialogue with the man was important.
That permission was granted, and Oron became a semi-regular visitor.
"Marwan Barghouti is the kind of leader very connected with the root of his people," Oron told the ABC.
"I think that he is from the material that makes a man a leader."
Oron recalled some of his political counterparts were deeply critical of his desire to meet with Barghouti, and sceptical about what their discussions could possibly achieve.
One said his decision to sit down with the man was akin to stabbing Israeli soldiers in the back, before being reminded Oron's own sons were serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and that he knew of the sacrifice families made.
From the back porch of his home on a kibbutz in southern Israel, Oron can see the border wall separating Israeli territory from the West Bank.
Like Barghouti, he believes the way to achieve peace is through a two-state solution.
"Which version of the solution — exactly where will be the border in Jerusalem and so on — we have to discuss and it may be a very long discussion and may be a very difficult discussion," he said.
"We have to compromise."
Oron argued that people such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he claimed are more determined to continue fighting over territory instead of trying to reach an agreement, would not want a man like Barghouti on the scene.
"Even Israelis who basically support a two-state solution say 'OK, but there is no partner,'" he said.
"Some say there is no Israeli partner, some say that there is no Palestinian, and some say especially there is no partner, there is nothing. 'You're dreaming.'
"I don't think that it is a dream — this is the only way to solve the problem, and to solve the problem, it means to solve the problem of the existence of Israel in this area, and existence of Israelis in this area is coexistence with a certain Palestinian entity."
Oron had not seen the video of Barghouti, but knew it existed. It was clear it did not sit well with him.
"I will say now a very, very difficult sentence — if Israel is the Israel of Ben-Gvir, it's not my Israel," he said.
"A state which is built on injustice, and now you have a lot of names that I'm very, very careful to use them — genocide, you know, all those names — all of them begin to touch the reality."
A 'unifying figure' behind bars
Marwan Barghouti has featured high on the list of Palestinians Hamas has demanded be freed during any ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Despite that, he was not among the thousands released by Israeli authorities during the ceasefire in early 2025.
"It's not easy at all, but … we as a family always remind ourselves that we're just a part of 10,000 families of Palestinian detainees who are going through the same," Arab Barghouti said.
"On the human level, we're just like any other family, waiting for my father to be back to his home and to meet his six grandchildren that he's never met before.
"I haven't been able to hug my father in 23 years."
His ongoing detention, his son believes, is because Israeli authorities feel threatened by him.
"He promised the people two things — the first one is that if the last thing I have is my life to sacrifice for the Palestinian freedom, I'm willing to do that. And he is doing that," Arab Barghouti said.
"The other thing is that he's a unifying figure, and in Palestine we need unity.
"We are hungry for unity, we've been divided for so long — more than 18 years of division in Palestine, and we need to take responsibility for that."
Arab insisted freedom for the Palestinian people could, and should, be achieved without violent protest.
"I think that the road to stability and peace is not through violence, it's by ending the cycle of violence," he said.
"And the only way to end the cycle of violence is by having a just peace — not any kind of peace, not peace under apartheid, not peace under a quiet ethnic cleansing campaign like we've been living for decades. No, a just peace.
"Palestinians [want] to feel free, to have our freedom, independence, and to live with dignity."
Marwan Barghouti once gave his son a reading list of 180 books, encouraging him to continue his education to further the family's campaign for freedom.
Arab conceded he hadn't made much of a dent in that pile over the two decades his father has been in jail.
But as he walks out of the family home every day, and past a large portrait of his father — handcuffed and gesturing to supporters in the courtroom where he was tried — he maintained he was keeping a promise to his father to fight for their people.
