The 66-year-old - serving life for planning deadly attacks against Israelis - was allegedly assaulted by eight guards during a transfer between Ganot and Megiddo prisons. The Israel Prison Service told the BBC: "These are false claims (fake). The Israel Prison Service operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates". Barghouti's son, Arab, told the BBC the family had received testimony from five separate detainees who were released this week who heard Barghouti's account of the attack. He said the family was "horrified".

Barghouti was allegedly handcuffed by the guards, put on the floor, kicked and beaten. "They focused on the head area, they focused on the chest area and also on the legs," he said. "He stayed unconscious for hours, he was bleeding, and he could hardly walk."

Arab said he believed the attack took place as his father was transferred between the two prisons, which are in southern and northern Israel, because there were no surveillance cameras to capture it. Barghouti is serving five life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted by an Israeli court in 2004 of planning attacks in which five civilians were killed. The detainees who told the family of the attack had been released as part of Monday's hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, Arab said. Barghouti's name was at the top of a list of seven high-profile prisoners whose release Hamas had sought in return for the 20 living Israeli hostages the group was holding in Gaza - but Israel refused to include him. (BBC)