Arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who is serving several successive life sentences in Israeli prison, was transferred to solitary confinement Wednesday, following his attempts to inflame the situation in Judea and Samaria and encourage terrorism from behind prison walls.
The Israeli Prison System internal court sentenced him to seven days in solitary confinement and a fine of 300 shekels ($78.60) for incitement, violence and providing an interview to the media without permission.
Barghouti smuggled a letter out of jail for the tenth anniversary of the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, calling for an (official) "intifada" (i.e. campaign of terrorism) against Israel.
In the letter, he said that "choosing global and armed resistance" was being "faithful to Arafat's legacy, to his ideas and his principles for which tens of thousands died as martyrs."
Barghouti also urged the Palestinian leadership to take action and make good on threats to end security cooperation with Israel.
"The Palestinian Authority must review its priorities and its mission... and put an immediate end to security cooperation which is only strengthening the occupier," he said.
Barghouti, who is widely believed to have masterminded the second intifada which claimed thousands of Israeli lives from 2000 to 2005, wrote the letter from his cell in Israel's Hadarim prison, where he is serving five consecutive life sentences for attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.
A senior figure within the Fatah movement of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Barghouti was arrested in 2002 and sentenced two years later.
He still wields huge influence from inside prison and is considered the only serious challenger to Abbas as president, with surveys regularly naming him as favorite to win elections should he be released from jail.
His letter sparked an outcry from the Almagor terror victims’ organization, which called on Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to take legal action against Barghouti on Tuesday - including, but not limited to, solitary confinement.