Senior Fatah official Marwan Barghouti called on Monday for a Palestinian dialogue conference to be held in order to bring an end to the internal division within the framework of the PLO, Al-Jazeera has reported. The member of the Fatah Central Committee has been imprisoned by Israel for the past 17 years.

Barghouti made his call in a letter sent from his cell, where he is held in solitary confinement, to mark Palestine Prisoners’ Day, which is commemorated today. He called for the power to run political, resistance and negotiation issues to be given to the PLO if all the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, are represented in the umbrella organisation.

Furthermore, he called for no talks to be held with the Israeli government until it announces its commitment to ending the occupation and withdrawing to the 1967 borders. The Palestinians, he added, should stick to their legitimate right to use all forms of resistance to the Israeli occupation, and give their full support to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.