Fakhri Barghouti grimaced in pain as an exultant crowd lifted him onto their shoulders next to his son Shadi, released from an Israeli jail yesterday under a Gaza ceasefire deal, AFP reports.
Though Barghouti, 71, shed tears of joy at seeing his son, he was also in physical pain. The night before, Israeli forces stormed his family home in the occupied West Bank village of Kobar, warning him not to celebrate his son’s release and assaulting him, he said.
“They entered after midnight, smashed everything, took me into a side room and beat me before leaving,” Barghouti told AFP. “I was taken to the hospital, where they found that I had a broken rib.”
Israeli forces conducted several raids on the family homes of prisoners about to be released, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group. Earlier the military had said in a statement it “conveyed messages that celebrations and processions in support of terrorism are prohibited during the release of the terrorists”.
Shadi Barghouti, 47, had been imprisoned since 2003 and was serving a 27-year sentence for being suspected of weapons possession, membership in an illegal organisation and complicity in murder, according to Israel’s justice ministry.
