An Israeli minister said Tuesday that Israel will not negotiate with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who launched Monday a hunger strike, demanding improved incarceration conditions.
The strike, led by high-profile Fatah-linked prisoner Marwan Barghouti, is the largest in recent years. Polls suggest that Barghouti, convicted by an Israeli court of deadly attacks against Israelis, is the most popular successor to President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel Prison Service said about 1,100 prisoners joined the strike on Monday. They demand better conditions, including stopping the administrative detentions, an indefinable incarceration without charges for renewable periods of six months.
Other demands include periodic medical examination, visits by the International Red Cross, installing pay phones and air condition systems, allowing prisoners to keep books, newspapers, clothes, and food.
Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan said that he believes the strike has no legitimacy. "The strike is politically motivated and includes unreasonable demands," he said in a statement released on his behalf.
"These are terrorists and incarcerated murderers who are getting exactly what the international law requires," he told Israel's Army Radio, adding that under the ministry's policy, "you can't negotiate with prisoners such as these."
"There is no reason to give them additional conditions in addition to what they already receive," he said.
He confirmed that Barghouti was transferred to another jail and was placed in solitary confinement.
He said the measure was a punishment for Barghouti's part in organizing the strike and not because of an op-ed by the Palestinian leader that the New York Times published on Monday.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel protested to the New York Times over the piece.
He said that the newspaper "presents arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti as a 'parliamentarian and leader,'" adding that the "paper recanted after we pointed it out to them."
The protest comes amidst a spate of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and at a time of renewed attempts by the United States to revive the peace talks.
Israel controls the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories it has seized in the 1967 Middle East war, despite international criticism.

source: Xinhua