Mousa Abu Marzouk, high-ranking in the Palestinian Hamas, tells the media company Al Jazeera that the terror-stamped group insists that Barghouti and several other well-known profiles are included on the lists of people to be released.
Barghouti became known within the political movement al-Fatah during the 1980s and 1990s. He has been imprisoned since 2002, when Israel in a disputed trial convicted him of involvement in deadly attacks.
Israel thus sees him as a terrorist leader, while Palestinians tend to portray him as a unifying figure who could become a future president. He has sometimes been called the Middle East's Nelson Mandela, who could become a driving force in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Some experts say that Israel therefore does not dare to release Barghouti, who is now 66 years old.
According to the agreement that Israel and Hamas have agreed on, the Palestinian group will release all hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Israel will release about 1,700 people arrested during the war, as well as 250 previously imprisoned people, many of them, like Barghouti, well-known names.
On Saturday afternoon, the Israeli prison authority Shabas announced that it had begun moving prisoners to two detention centers in preparation for their release.
