An Israeli court on Sunday sentenced Marwan Barghouthi, the charismatic Palestinian revolt leader seen as a potential successor to President Yasser Arafat, to life in prison on murder convictions.
‘‘The (Israeli) occupation is going to end one day. It is dying,’’ Barghouthi, 45, said before the Tel Aviv court handed down consecutive life sentences for murder in the killings of five people by militants in his Fatah faction. Barghouthi, who denied involvement in militant ambushes, received another 20 years for attempted murder and a further 20 for activity in a ‘‘terror group’’ — 165 years in total — in a high-profile case that Palestinians denounced as a show trial.