A Hamas terrorist serving 67 life terms in prison used a smuggled cell phone to be interviewed on Hamas radio, Reshet Bet (Voice of Israel) radio reported Sunday.
Abdallah Barghouti, who originally was in solitary confinement, managed to obtain a phone. Speaking from his jail cell, he told listeners in Gaza:
We are patient and determined. God is with us, and we will continue [to survive] even if we are freed in another 1,000 years.
He also advised the Palestinian Authority not to hastily sign a prisoner release agreement with Israel, although none is known to be on the horizon.
Israeli prison officials have no explanation for the time being how Barghouti got his hands on a mobile phone, but they have put him back in solitary confinement.
Barghouti, not to be confused with his relative Marwan Barghouti who also is serving multiple life terms in prison for murders, was a Hamas commander and a bomb-maker in Judea and Samaria.
Palestinian Authority security forces arrested him, or perhaps protected him from the IDF, in 2001 for involvement in the deadly bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, but he remained in the hands of the PA and was released a year later.
Barghouti used his freedom to plan and build more bombs, such as the Tel Bus No. 4 suicide bombing. The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) caught up with him in 2003, and he was sentenced to prison.