RAMALLAH — The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, is not among the prisoners Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the new Gaza ceasefire deal.

Israel also rejected freeing other high-profile prisoners whose release Hamas has long sought, though it was not immediately clear if a list of about 250 prisoners issued Friday on the Israeli government’s website was final.

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera TV that the group insists on the release of Barghouti and other high-profile figures and that it was in discussions with mediators.

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.

With the ceasefire and Israeli troop pullback in Gaza that came into effect Friday, Hamas is to release about 20 living Israeli hostages by Monday. Israel is to free some 250 Palestinians serving prison sentences, as well as around 1,700 people seized from Gaza over the past two years and held without charge.

The releases carry powerful meaning on both sides. Israelis see the prisoners as terrorists, some involved in suicide bombings. Many Palestinians view the thousands held by Israel as political prisoners or freedom fighters resisting decades of military occupation.

Most of those on the Israeli prisoner list 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 will be sent to Gaza or into exile outside the Palestinian territories, according to the list.

One prisoner who will be freed is Iyad Abu al-Rub, an Islamic Jihad commander convicted of orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel from 2003 to 2005 that killed 13 people.

The oldest to be released is 64-year-old Samir Abu Naama, a Fatah member arrested in 1986 and convicted of planting explosives.

The youngest is Mohammed Abu Qatish, who was 16 when arrested in 2022 and convicted of attempted stabbing.

Hamas leaders have long demanded that Israel release Barghouti, a leader of the militant group’s main political rival, Fatah, as part of any deal to end the fighting in Gaza. But Israel has refused in previous exchanges.

Israel fears history could repeat itself after it released senior Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a 2011 exchange. Sinwar, one of the architects of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the latest Gaza war, was killed by Israeli forces last year.

Barghouti, 66, is widely seen as a potential successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority that governs pockets of the West Bank. Polls consistently show Barghouti as the most popular Palestinian leader.

Born in the West Bank village of Kobar in 1959, Barghouti studied history and politics at Bir Zeit University, where he helped lead student protests against the Israeli occupation.

He became a key organizer in the first Palestinian uprising in 1987 and was later deported to Jordan before returning to the West Bank in the 1990s as part of interim peace agreements that created the Palestinian Authority.

After the Second Intifada erupted, Israel accused Barghouti — then head of Fatah in the West Bank — of leading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose network of Fatah-linked armed groups that carried out attacks on Israelis.

Barghouti did not confirm his links to the Brigades. While he expressed hope for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, he said Palestinians had a right to fight back against occupation and settlement expansion.

“I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist,” he wrote in a 2002 Washington Post editorial.

Soon after, Israel arrested Barghouti. At trial, he refused to defend himself, saying 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 in others.

In 2021, Barghouti registered his own list for parliamentary elections that were later canceled. Earlier, he led more than 1,500 prisoners in a 40-day hunger strike demanding better conditions in Israeli prisons.

Barghouti was last seen in August when Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself confronting him inside prison, saying Israel would “wipe out” anyone who acts against the country. — Agencies