Barghouti faces fury of victims' relatives in court

There were extraordinary scenes as the anger, hatred and pain of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came to a Tel Aviv courthouse yesterday.

First, lawyers for Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian leader accused by Israel of murdering 26 Israelis in militant attacks, distributed their own 54-charge indictment outside the court, accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Barghouti's supporters and the relatives of Israelis killed in the attacks he allegedly organised began pushing and jostling each other, and had to be separated. And then, to the fury of Israelis in the court, Mr Barghouti's Jewish lawyer compared the Palestinian leader to Moses.

As Mr Barghouti was led into court, he twice had to be led out again after he shouted "the intifada will defeat the occupation" and the relatives of Israelis killed in attacks shouted angrily back at him.

One man screamed at Mr Barghouti: "You should be castrated." A woman held up a picture of her son, murdered in an attack, and said: "He is a vampire taking away the blood of Jewish children".

Palestinians accuse Israel of staging a political trial. Israeli officials insist Mr Barghouti's case – the first civilian trial of a leader of the intifada – is purely criminal. Mr Barghouti, who has been spoken of as a possible successor to Yasser Arafat, is accused of organising suicide bombings and other attacks in which 26 Israelis were killed. Both sides have seized on the trial for publicity. Israeli officials have said the trial is a chance to tell Israel's side of the story.

But the first hearing in August was upstaged by Mr Barghouti, who waved his shackles over his head and declared there would be no peace and no security for Israel until the occupation ended.

Yesterday his lawyers presented a charge sheet accusing Israel of violating about 30 international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions, by denying health care to civilians, expelling Palestinians and demolishing their homes, torturing prisoners, and denying education to children.

Mr Barghouti said: "This is a court of the occupation, it has no right to try me."

He has said he does not recognise the court, and appeared without lawyers at an earlier hearing, but yesterday his lawyers argued the case for his defence, saying Israel had no jurisdiction over him, because he had been captured in sovereign territory outside Israel – the city of Ramallah, which is under Palestinian self-rule.

Israelis in the court were stunned and furious when one of Mr Barghouti's lawyers, Shamai Leibowitz, a Jewish Israeli, called his client a Palestinian Moses. Wearing a Jewish skullcap, Mr Leibowitz referred to the Bible, saying Moses killed an Egyptian not because he hated Egyptians but because the man was beating a fellow Jew. The judge cut Mr Leibowitz short, telling him to save the story for Passover. An Israeli whose brother and pregnant sister-in-law were killed in a bombing asked Mr Leibowitz: "How dare you call yourself a Jew?"

Mr Barghouti was remanded in custody until the next hearing on 21 November.