By AFP - Apr 18,2017 - Last updated at Apr 18,2017

Protesters hold portraits of Palestinian prisoners during a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah to show their support to Palestinians detained in Israeli jails after hundreds of them launched a hunger strike on Monday (AFP photo)

RAMALLAH — Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails launched a hunger strike Monday following a call from leader and prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouthi, a movement that could mark a serious challenge to Israeli authorities if sustained. “In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.”

Issa Qaraqe, head of prisoners affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said that “around 1,300 Palestinian prisoners were participating in the hunger strike and the number could rise. Israeli prison service spokesman Assaf Librati said that some 1,100 detainees had announced their intention to begin a hunger strike across several prisons. “It is to be emphasised that the [prison service] does not negotiate with prisoners.”

Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes. The strikers also want better medical treatment and that disabled inmates or those suffering chronic illness be freed, access to more television channels and more phone contact with relatives and more family visits. Israeli public radio reported that Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has ordered intervention units to be put on standby and that a field hospital be set up outside one prison to avoid having to take sick prisoners to civilian hospitals. The hunger strikers' long list of demands includes an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, a policy under which Israel holds prisoners without charge or trial.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails — activists say up to 1,500 are participating — begin an open-ended hunger strike to protest poor conditions and the Israeli policy of detention without trial.