Palestinian prisoners launch hunger strike to protest Israeli abuse

Hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel started an indefinite hunger strike, a human rights organisation has said.

Nearly 1,000 detainees from all prisons in Israel launched the hunger strike at 7 pm local time "to protest the aggression of the prison administration", the director of the Palestinian Prisoners Press Office, Ahmed al Kudra, said in a statement on Thursday.

Kudra urged Palestinians to mobilise and "take to the streets" to support the detainees.

He asked Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank to hold demonstrations to protest the "brutal" attack on prisoners.

Tensions broke out after the Negev prison administration in southern Israel raided the third and fourth sections of the prison and transferred detainees to another area, according to a separate joint statement by human rights organisations.

Israeli authorities are yet to comment on the issue.

There are around 5,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, according to Palestinian figures, including at least 1,200 held without charge or trial.

Palestinians jailed by Israel have for years used protests to demand better living conditions and an end to indefinite detentions.

The hunger strike comes amid increased violence in the occupied West Bank over the past 15 months amid stepped-up Israeli raids, rampages by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages and Palestinian street attacks.

A UN tally showed at least 196 Palestinians and 24 people in Israel have been killed in hostilities since January. Palestinians have limited self-rule in the West Bank, among territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel subjects millions of Palestinians to military rule there and has continued to build settlements, considered by most countries as illegal.

US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of resuming.