Israel meets with prison hunger-strikers

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JERUSALEM, April 26 (UPI) -- An activist group representing 1,650 Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike urged Israel Thursday to start urgent talks on the treatment of prisoners.

The hunger-strikers are jailed in Israel and are protesting Israel's policy of administrative detention, which allows authorities to detain people indefinitely, CNN reported.

The Palestinian Prisoner Association Club called on Israel to immediately begin discussions with prisoners representatives of prisoners in all prisons. The group also asked the United Nations and European Union to intervene on the issue.

Hassan Abed Rabo, a spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and ex-Detainees, said Israeli officials met with the representatives of prisoners inside all Israeli prisons to listen to their demands.

Rabo said the hunger strike was "the last weapon for the prisoners inside Israeli prisons to preserve their dignity and obtain their human rights."

Prisoners' demands have to do with their daily conditions in prison and are not political, Rabo said.

Sivan Weizman, Israeli prison service spokeswoman, confirmed that meetings had been going on but was not able to say when the decision would come.