JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- At least 1,600 Palestinian security prisoners Sunday started an open-ended hunger strike.
The chairman of the Mandela Institute for Human Rights, Ahmad Sayyad, told United Press International the prisoners' 24 demands include access to pay phones or private cellular phones, and the removal of glass partitions that separate them from their families during visits.
Sayyad said 4,000 prisoners were taking part in the hunger strike, but the Israeli Prison Authority said the strike was only partial, with approximately 1,600 people refusing food.
In rejecting the prisoners' demands, the Prisons Authority said convicts use phones to plan more attacks. Body contact with visitors allow the prisoners to transmit messages and obtain small cellular phones that women visitors hide in their bodies or in babies' diapers.
The authorities removed TV sets and cooking utensils from the strikers' cells and put medical staff on call.
Public Security Minister Zahi Hangbi said Friday the prisoners -- many of whom had killed Israelis -- could starve themselves to death, but the Prisons Authority said if necessary, the convicts would be pulled from their cells and force-fed.
