Hamas on Thursday accused Israel of the “direct assault and deliberate beating” of Abdullah Barghouti, a notorious senior Hamas commander serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail for his role in suicide attacks during the Second Intifada.

Barghouti, a key leader in the terror group’s military wing and master bombmaker, was sentenced in 2003 to 67 life terms for making the bombs used in deadly attacks at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem’s Sbarro restaurant and the city’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, and several other terror attacks, killing a total of 66 and injuring hundreds.

According to a statement released by the Hamas-affiliated Asra prisoner affairs agency, a jailer at Israel’s Gilboa Prison slammed Barghouti’s head against an iron door as he was on his way to a prison visit, leading him to bleed from near his left eye.

In addition, Barghouti’s body weight dropped from 110 to 60 kilograms (243 to 132 pounds) as a result of Israel’s “starvation policy,” the agency alleged. The agency’s statement did not specify when Barghouti was allegedly beaten, nor when his body weight started dropping.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, Barghouti’s family said it learned from his lawyer that he is subject to “continuous assaults” in prison: “We fear for his........

© The Times of Israel