Abdullah Barghouti
Abdullah BarghoutiNoam Moskowitz/Flash 90

The daughter of senior Hamas terrorist Abdullah Barghouti, who is currently serving time in an Israeli prison and is participating in a mass hunger strike, on Saturday sent a letter to her father on Facebook, in which she expressed support for her father, who was convicted of murdering 66 Israelis and wounding hundreds more.

Barghouti served as the senior commander of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades in Judea and Samaria during the second intifada, and was responsible for the suicide bombing at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, the double suicide bombing attack on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem, as well as attacks in Rishon Lezion and Tel Aviv.

Tala Abdullah al-Barghouti wrote the following to her father:

“A letter that may not reach its destination. Father, today I graduated. If you only knew how much time I spent looking for you among those present. I saw all the fathers laughing, but did not hear your laughter, as if I had never seen you laugh. All the fathers hugged their daughters, except for me, whose longing for you and the heartache over your absence overwhelmed me. But I am strong, steadfast in your way, father.”

“You have given this people an honor that amounts to the number of years to which you were sentenced - 67 life sentences. I promise you that I will complete the path successfully, father, and I promise you that I will keep this place empty in any happy event in my life, and that it will be filled with love and longing for you,” wrote the daughter.

Barghouti, who was arrested in 2003 by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), was placed in solitary confinement two years ago for speaking to a radio station run by Hamas using a mobile telephone that was smuggled into his prison.

Hundreds of terrorists in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on April 17 in an attempt to pressure Israel to improve the conditions of their imprisonment.

Among their demands, as published this past week, is access to no less than 20 television channels, the introduction of books, magazines and newspapers into the prison without proscribed limits, and a later time for lights out in the prisons.

Jailed terrorists have often used hunger strikes as a pressure tactic aimed at forcing Israel to improve the conditions of their imprisonment or release them out of fear for their lives. Israel has several times in the past caved to the pressure and released some hunger strikers.