On Thursday The Palestinian Security Forces of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, arrested Omar Barghouthi, 55, a former political prisoner held by Israel for more than ten years, and the brother of the longest held Palestinian detainee in an Israeli prison.Barghouthi, known as Abu Asef, is from Kobar village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah. The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees in Gaza, slammed the arrest of Omar Barghouthi and considered it as “stabbing in the back of detainees and the symbols of resistance.’
The Ministry, run under Hamas in Gaza, said that the security forces of Fateh under president Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank, are “serving the interests of the Israeli occupation, conducting acts and violations that cause further tension and obstruct efforts to achieve national unity.’
Both Omar and his older brother, Na’el Barghouthi, had been kidnapped by the Israeli army on April, 4, 1978, while still in high school and were both given life sentences. But in 1985, Abu Asef was released in a prisoner-swap deal mediated between Israel and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
Omar Barghouthi’s son, Asef, is now in a Israeli prison, sentenced to eleven years.
