Editing Marwan Barghouti (section)

== Early life, education and expulsion ==
Barghouti was born in the village of [[Kobar]] near [[Ramallah]] in the West Bank. Like his distant cousin [[Mustafa Barghouti]], a fellow Palestinian political leader, he belongs to the extended [[Barghouti family|Barghouti]] family. His younger brother Muqbel described him as "a naughty and rebellious boy."<ref name=NYTBennet>{{cite news|last=Bennet|first=James|author-link=James Bennet (journalist)|title=Jailed in Israel, Palestinian Symbol Eyes Top Post|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/international/middleeast/19palestine.html?pagewanted=print&position=|newspaper=The New York Times|date=19 November 2004|access-date=17 June 2024}}</ref>

In 1967, when Barghouti was seven-years-old, Israel occupied the West Bank in the [[Six-Day War]]. According to [[The Economist]], Marwan's "neighbours were beaten up or arrested for flying Palestinian flags. Military bases and Jewish settlements sprang up around their village. Israeli soldiers shot dead the family dog for barking."<ref name=":7" />

Barghouti joined Fatah at age 15,<ref name="bbcprofile" /> and he was a co-founder of the Fatah Youth Movement (Shabiba) on the West Bank. That year he was first imprisoned by Israel.<ref name=":8" /> At 18, he was imprisoned again. He later wrote that during the subsequent interrogation, he was forced to strip naked, spread his legs, and was struck on the genitals so hard that he lost consciousness.<ref name=":8" /> He completed his secondary education and received a high school diploma while serving a four-year term in jail, where he became fluent in Hebrew.<ref name="Hajjar">{{cite book |author-link=Lisa Hajjar |first=Lisa |last=Hajjar |chapter=Competing Political Cultures: Interview with Marwan Barghouti |editor-first1=Joel |editor-last1=Beinin |editor-first2=Rebecca L. |editor-last2=Stein |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EVN_FhziN_EC&pg=PA105 |title=The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 |publisher=Stanford University Press |date=2006 |pages=105–106|isbn=978-0-8047-5365-4 }}</ref>

Barghouti enrolled at [[Birzeit University]] in 1983, though arrest and exile meant that he did not receive his Bachelor's degree (History and Political Science) until 1994. He earned a Master's degree in International Relations, also from [[Birzeit University|Birzeit]], in 1998. As an undergraduate, he was active in student politics on behalf of Fatah and headed the [[Birzeit University|Birzeit]] Student Council. In 1984, he married [[Fadwa Ibrahim]], a fellow student. Fadwa studied law and was a prominent advocate in her own right on behalf of Palestinian prisoners, before becoming the leading campaigner for her husband's release from his current jail term. Together the couple had four children. Before his eldest son was born, and while still a student leader, Barghouti was jailed for a third time.<ref name=":7" /> He missed the birth of his eldest son.<ref name=":8" /> In May 1987, Israel expelled him. Initially Barghouti and Fadwa moved to Tunis, and then in April 1988 to Amman.