WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is suggesting he could call on Israel to release imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, the most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader, as the United States aims to fill a leadership vacuum in postwar Gaza.
Trump, in an interview published Thursday, said he has discussed the potential for Barghouti's release with White House aides.
"I was literally being confronted with that question about 15
minutes before you called,” Trump told Time magazine interview when asked about Barghouti. “So I’ll be making a decision.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Trump's deliberations on the matter. But the president's acknowledgment of the internal discussions underscores the difficult task of finding credible political figures to oversee governance in Gaza as the U.S. and Israel say they are committed to preventing Hamas from continuing to rule the territory.
Barghouti was not among prisoners Israel agreed to release this month in exchange for hostages under the Gaza ceasefire deal, despite Hamas officials reportedly calling for his freedom.
Israel views Barghouti as a terrorist leader. He is serving multiple life sentences after being convicted in 2004 in connection with attacks in Israel that killed five people.
Some experts say Israel fears Barghouti for another reason: An advocate of a two-state solution even as he backed armed resistance to occupation, Barghouti could be a powerful rallying figure for Palestinians. Some Palestinians view him as their own Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid activist who became his country’s first Black president.
One of the few consensus figures in Palestinian politics, the 66-year-old Barghouti is widely seen as a potential successor to Mahmoud Abbas, the aging and unpopular leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority that runs pockets of the West Bank. Polls consistently show Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian leader.
Barghouti headed Fatah in the West Bank when the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel, broke out. Israel accused him of being the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose collection of Fatah-linked armed groups that carried out attacks on Israelis.
Barghouti never commented on his links to the Brigades. While he expressed hopes for a Palestinian state and Israel side by side in peace, he said Palestinians had a right to fight back in the face of growing Israeli settlements and the military’s violence against Palestinians.
Soon after, he was arrested by Israel. At trial he opted not to defend himself because he did not recognize the court’s authority. He was convicted of murder for involvement in several Brigades’ attacks and given five life sentences, while acquitted over other attacks.
Most of those released by Israel under the ceasefire this month are members of Hamas and the Fatah faction arrested in the 2000s. Many were convicted of involvement in shootings, bombings or other attacks that killed or attempted to kill Israeli civilians, settlers and soldiers. After their release, more than half were sent to Gaza or into exile outside the Palestinian territories.
The 2000s saw the eruption of the second intifada, fueled by anger over continued occupation despite years of peace talks. The uprising turned bloody, with Palestinian armed groups carrying out attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis. The Israeli military killed several thousand Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance, winding down a three-day visit to Israel, said Thursday that Gaza reconstruction in areas free of Hamas could begin soon.
“We could start reconstruction of the areas that are free of Hamas very quickly. We think that we could potentially get hundreds of thousands of Gazans living in that area very quickly,” Vance said. “But again, this is all still pretty early. But that’s the basic idea.”
Vance added that it will take to two years to three years to rebuild the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Rafah’s population surged early in the war as many Palestinians were displaced by Israeli operations elsewhere in the territory. By this past spring, Rafah was also largely decimated by the fighting.
