SENIOR Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti sustained multiple rib fractures after being violently assaulted by Israeli prison guards, it was revealed on Wednesday.
Barghouti was attacked during his transfer from Rimon Prison to Megiddo Prison in mid-September.
‘He lost consciousness and suffered fractures in four ribs as a result of the beating,’ a statement said, accusing a special Israeli prison suppression unit of the assault.
Barghouti, one of the most prominent and widely respected Palestinian leaders, has been imprisoned by the Israeli occupation since 2002.
He is serving five life sentences on charges linked to the Second Intifada (Al-Aqsa Uprising), which erupted in the fall of 2000.
In August, Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed Barghouti’s cell and directly threatened him, saying, ‘Anyone who kills our children or women will be erased. You will never defeat us,’ according to footage released by Israeli media outlets.
The incident sparked outrage among Palestinian political factions and human rights advocates, who say it reflects the Israeli escalating policy of repression and humiliation against Palestinian prisoners.
Also, South Africa has confirmed that the Gaza ceasefire will not affect the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says the Gaza ceasefire will not affect his country’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Ramaphosa made the statement on Tuesday in Cape Town in parliament, stressing that South Africa’s determination to pursue its 2023 case despite the agreement on the widely lauded US-backed deal aimed at ending Israel’s war on the besieged territory.
‘The peace deal that has been struck, which we welcome, will have no bearing on the case that is before the International Court of Justice,’ Ramaphosa told parliament.
‘The case is proceeding, and it now has to go to the stage where Israel has to respond to our pleadings that have been filed in the court, and they have to do so by January of next year,’ he added.
South Africa filed the case in December 2023, accusing Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza.
South Africa handed in a 500-page detailed submission in October 2024, with Israel’s counter-arguments due by January 12, 2026.
Oral hearings are anticipated in 2027, with a final judgement expected in late 2027 or early 2028.
The ICJ has issued three provisional measures, ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, though Israel has largely failed to comply.
More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Ramaphosa emphasised that real healing requires the case being properly heard.
‘We cannot go forward without the healing that needs to take place, which will also result from the case that has been launched being properly heard,’ he said.
Responding to a news report about the announcement, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, wrote on X: ‘Peace without justice, respect for human rights and dignity, without reparations and guarantees of non repetition is not sustainable.’
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has been a vocal critic of Israel, echoed similar sentiments, telling Spanish radio that the ceasefire should not mean impunity for Israel.
‘There cannot be impunity’, Sanchez said, adding that ‘the main actors of the genocide will have to answer to justice’.
Several rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have accused Israel of committing genocidal acts in Gaza. A UN commission of inquiry found in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide.
Several countries have joined, or declared an intention to do so, in the ICJ case to support South Africa, including Spain, Ireland, Turkey and Colombia, whose president, Gustavo Petro, wrote that governments risk becoming ‘complicit in the atrocities’ if they fail to act.
South Africa co-chairs The Hague Group, a coalition formed in January 2025, focused on holding Israel accountable through legal, diplomatic and economic measures beyond the ICJ proceedings.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced on Wednesday that it has made it a top priority to return 140,000 students in the Gaza Strip to their classrooms after being deprived of education due to Israel’s ongoing genocide against the enclave.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA’s media adviser, said the agency is focusing on restoring education for children who have missed years of schooling because of the war.
‘There are children aged 10 who cannot read or write,’ he said, noting that more than one million children live in the devastated enclave, and ‘nothing has changed in their conditions so far’.
Statistics show that Israel’s genocidal war deprived more than 70,000 students born in 2006 and 2007 from taking their high school exams. Around 4,000 students were killed, while another 4,000 managed to take exams abroad over the past two years.
On humanitarian aid, Abu Hasna told Al Jazeera that the agency has around 6,000 trucks loaded with food supplies sufficient for three months, along with hundreds of thousands of tents and blankets. However, Israel continues to block their entry into Gaza.
‘UNRWA is fully ready to distribute aid immediately once it is allowed in,’ he said, stressing that the agency has 12,000 employees in Gaza, in addition to thousands of temporary workers and volunteers with over seven decades of experience in relief operations.
Abu Hasna explained that UNRWA has developed a three-pronged plan to be implemented once aid is permitted: Distribution of food, tents, and blankets; provision of health services; and resumption of education.
On Monday evening, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini posted on X that ‘it is time to allow large-scale humanitarian assistance into Gaza’, following the start of prisoner exchanges between Palestinians and Israelis under the new ceasefire agreement.
Earlier, the Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that 173 aid trucks entered the Strip on Sunday after the ceasefire took effect but described the quantity as ‘very limited’.
Iran’s Minister of Sports and Youth has urged Spain to play a key role in creating a global consensus on suspending the Israeli regime’s sports over its ‘blatant anti-human actions’.
Ahmad Donyamali, in a letter to Spain’s Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Pilar Alegría, appealed to Spain’s historical principles and influential position to build a consensus for the suspension.
The letter hailed Spanish sports as a global ‘symbol of solidarity, courage, and mutual respect’ that has played an ‘unparalleled role in promoting human values.’
According to the Iranian minister, the presence of Israel in international sports arenas as ‘the biggest violator of international law, has become a serious problem for the credibility of the global values of sports’.
‘Over the past decades, this regime has shown its true face to the world with blatant anti-human actions, including the occupation of territories, the implementation of discriminatory policies, and continuous violations of human rights,’ he added.
Donyamali warned that the ongoing situation ‘turns sports, which should be the common language of nations for convergence, into a tool serving to legitimise a regime based on discrimination and apartheid’.
Drawing a direct parallel to the historical sports boycott of South Africa’s apartheid regime, Donyamali noted that the global sports community has a ‘decisive role’ to play in confronting discriminatory behaviour. He expressed that the world now requires ‘the same determination and solidarity’.
Spain is pushing the European Union to exclude Israel from all continental sports competitions.
The Iranian minister highlighted Spain’s ‘privileged position in the European Union and the international community’, proposing that its ministry lead an official initiative with other European nations in international sports forums to suspend Israel.
Donyamali expressed confidence that Spain, ‘as one of the leading countries in sports’, would affirm the necessity of ‘justice, ethics and respect for international law in the sports arenas’.
In May, Alegría announced that her nation, in conjunction with the European Union, is prepared to open discussions regarding the exclusion of ‘Israel’ from all sports, both continental and international tournaments.
