The jailed leader who could be key to ending Gaza crisis

At times of great upheaval in Palestine, people start to talk about Marwan Barghouti. The 64-year-old political leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for murder represents the prospect of a shake-up to the status quo. Palestinian towns - and the Israeli-built concrete walls that cut them up-are covered in graffitied images of Barghouti, his handcuffed hands held high above his head.

- Oliver Holmes and Peter Beaumont

Virtually every opinion poll since his imprisonment two decades ago show Barghouti to be the favourite presidential candidate for the Palestinian people, were they able to hold free elections. A December survey showed him 40 points ahead of the deeply unpopular current leader Mahmoud Abbas but also beating Hamas candidates, including the Islamist militant group's political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

With Palestinian factions deeply divided, Barghouti operates in a middle ground respected by secular nationalists but also Islamists, many of whom he formed close relationships with in jail. Even Hamas, which despises the western-friendly circles he is part of, has called for his release as part of a proposed Gaza ceasefire deal.

One of seven children born to a poor farming family in the tiny West Bank village of Kafr Kober, as a teenager Barghouti led student movements for Fatah, the political party founded by Yasser Arafat of which President Abbas is now chairman.