GAZA, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Palestinian prisoners held in Israel have started a hunger strike to protest against the escalating fighting between rival Fatah and Hamas gunmen in Gaza.
A statement issued by the Palestinian detainees, and read by their spokesman Mahmoud Abu Haseera, said they have decided to start an indefinite hunger strike as of Friday to pressure the gunmen in Gaza to stop their battles and to pay attention to the interests of their people and the "Israeli plans."
The prisoners said they did not make sacrifices and paying with their freedom for the Palestinians to fight each other, adding the hunger strike is to protest the "targeting of mosques, civil institutions and civilians who are falling in the clashes between brothers."
The protest comes as fighting between nationalist Fatah and Islamic Hamas gunmen reached a high point Friday, with residents remaining indoors to dodge bullets in street battles that spread across the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources have reported that more than 25 people were killed and at least 140 others injured Friday in the worst day of fighting since the struggle began between the two main groups with the sweeping Hamas victory in the January 2006 elections.
The prisoners demanded the rival leaders return to the negotiating table and quickly form a national unity government to replace the current Cabinet dominated by Hamas.
Officials said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, has accepted a Saudi invitation to meet Hamas' Damascus-based political chief Khaled Meshaal in Saudi Arabia next week.
Saudi Arabia will try to push the two leaders, who met in Damascus last month, to come to an agreement on a new government hoped to end the inter-Palestinian power struggle and violence, which many fear is quickly deteriorating into an all-out civil war.
