Israel Zodiac Mosaic: Vandals Damage 1,600-Year-Old Art At Synagogue

Israel Zodiac Mosaic: Vandals Damage 1,600-Year-Old Art At Synagogue

JERUSALEM -- Vandals badly damaged a rare 1,600-year-old mosaic in the northern Israeli city of Tiberias that formed the floor of an ancient synagogue, smashing parts to rubble and scrawling graffiti, antiquity officials said Tuesday.

Experts suspect extremist Jews who object, sometimes violently, to excavations they claim involve ancient grave sites. There was no claim of responsibility. Police are investigating.

Guards found the damage on Tuesday morning, said archeologists involved in the site.

The mosaic, dating 400 years after the birth of Jesus, was one of the best preserved and beautiful of its period, according to archaeologists.

It featured illustrated zodiac signs and the traditional symbolism of a fourth-century synagogue: ritual candelabras and palm fronds. The synagogue's ruins, including its ancient mosaic floor, were in a fenced-off area of a national park in Tiberias, next to the Sea of Galilee.

It listed the names of the synagogue's chief patrons in ancient Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

Israel Antiquities Authority deputy director Uzi Dahari said a fringe group of ultra-Orthodox Jews were suspected of causing the damage, much of it irreversible. Dahari said the graffiti scrawled across parts of the archaeological site and previous threats against the Antiquities Authority suggested they were the perpetrators.

Photographs issued by the Antiquities Authority showed parts of the mosaic floor reduced to gray chunks of rubble. Other photographs showed blue spray paint scrawled over the mosaic, covering ancient Hebrew and Greek letters spelled out in blue, red and beige tiles. Graffiti was also scrawled along rock walls beside the mosaic. Perpetrators also punched a hole in the mosaic between two candelabras.

"On every grave, a site," one neatly written Hebrew slogan said.

Dahari and other archaeologists said it referred to constant accusations by a tiny Jewish hard-line group that the Antiquities Authority was digging up Jewish graves. Disturbing Jewish graves is a deeply offensive act for devout Jews.

Archeologists said they have found similar graffiti on other sites. The Hebrew word for "site" is also shorthand for an archaeological site, as in English.

An archaeologist who frequently works in the Galilee area, Gilad Kinamon, said ultra-Orthodox Jews frequently turned up to his sites to demonstrate against his work.

"It was the best of Jewish art of its time, of the late Roman and early Byzantine period," said Dahari. They ... destroyed what was in front of them without thinking," he said.

2 Israeli police convicted in Palestinian death

2 Israeli police convicted in Palestinian death

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press

Monday, May 28, 2012

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) --

A Jerusalem court on Monday convicted two Israeli police of negligent homicide for abandoning an injured Palestinian man on a roadside, where he was found dead two days later.

The case has raised questions about failures that led to the death of Omar Abu Jarban, a car thief from the Gaza Strip who illegally lived in Israel. The man was passed from medical officials to prison and police authorities before he died.

Abu Jarban was still wearing hospital pants when he was left on the side of an Israeli highway near the West Bank at night in June, 2008. One of the policemen testified he thought the man would be picked up by a passing Palestinian motorist.

"The defendants were closed off to the distress of a human being and left him to his fate in circumstances that any reasonable human being would have avoided and refrained from doing," said Judge Haim Li-Ran in an almost 1,000-page ruling.

"The decision to drop this detainee in the circumstances that he was dropped off under, in the unlikely assumption that he would be picked up, is negligent. A reasonable person with eyes in his head and compassion in his heart would not accept these circumstances," Li-Ran said.

Abu Jarban was injured while driving a car he had stolen the month before, according to court documents. He was treated in two Israeli hospitals for his injuries.

Israeli hospitals routinely provide medical treatment for Palestinians, even if they are in the country illegally, and even if they are convicted criminals.

After several weeks of treatment, Abu Jarban was transferred to police custody. He was meant to be referred to a prison medical facility for further care. But a prison clinic refused to treat him, and the two policemen then decided to abandon him on the roadside. His dehydrated body was found two days later.

A sentencing date was not set. A lawyer for the police officers said they would appeal the verdict. A police spokesman declined to comment.

Although the treatment of Abu Jarban was unusual in its severity, a noted critic of Israeli occupation of the West Bank said it showed how the decades-long conflict has hardened Israelis.

"After 45 years of occupation, people get used to all kinds of distortions ... but sometimes there's an event that is so unusual, and it's like a metaphor," author David Grossman, who wrote a front-page editorial on the case in the Haaretz daily several weeks ago, said in an interview.

"Such an event casts a light on so many aspects of our lives that we prefer not to notice," he said.

Attempts to revive language spoken in Jesus' time

n a Wednesday, May 2, 2012 photo, schoolgirls study Aramaic in the Arab village of Jish, northern Israel. Jish is one of two villages in the Holy Land's tiny Christian community that are teaching Aramaic to their children in an ambitious effort to preserve the language that Jesus spoke, centuries after it all but disappeared from the modern Middle East. (AP Photo/Diaa Hadid)

Attempts to revive language spoken in Jesus' time
By DIAA HADID | Associated Press

JISH, Israel (AP) — Two villages in the Holy Land's tiny Christian community are teaching Aramaic in an ambitious effort to revive the language that Jesus spoke, centuries after it all but disappeared from the Middle East.

The new focus on the region's dominant language 2,000 years ago comes with a little help from modern technology: an Aramaic-speaking television channel from Sweden, of all places, where a vibrant immigrant community has kept the ancient tongue alive.

In the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, an older generation of Aramaic speakers is trying to share the language with their grandchildren. Beit Jala lies next to Bethlehem, where the New Testament says Jesus was born.

And in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, nestled in the Galilean hills where Jesus lived and preached, elementary school children are now being instructed in Aramaic. The children belong mostly to the Maronite Christian community. Maronites still chant their liturgy in Aramaic but few understand the prayers.

"We want to speak the language that Jesus spoke," said Carla Hadad, a 10-year-old Jish girl who frequently waved her arms to answer questions in Aramaic from school teacher Mona Issa during a recent lesson.

"We used to speak it a long time ago," she added, referring to her ancestors.

During the lesson, a dozen children lisped out a Christian prayer in Aramaic. They learned the words for "elephant," ''how are you?" and "mountain." Some children carefully drew sharp-angled Aramaic letters. Others fiddled with their pencil cases, which sported images of popular soccer teams.

The dialect taught in Jish and Beit Jala is "Syriac," which was spoken by their Christian forefathers and resembles the Galilean dialect that Jesus would have used, according to Steven Fassberg, an Aramaic expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"They probably would have understood each other," Fassberg said.

In Jish, about 80 children in grades one through five study Aramaic as a voluntary subject for two hours a week. Israel's education ministry provided funds to add classes until the eighth grade, said principal Reem Khatieb-Zuabi.

Several Jish residents lobbied for Aramaic studies several years ago, said Khatieb-Zuabi, but the idea faced resistance: Jish's Muslims worried it was a covert attempt to entice their children to Christianity. Some Christians objected, saying the emphasis on their ancestral language was being used to strip them of their Arab identity. The issue is sensitive to many Arab Muslims and Christians in Israel, who prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, not their faith.

Ultimately, Khatieb-Zuabi, a secular Muslim from an outside village, overruled them.

"This is our collective heritage and culture. We should celebrate and study it," the principal said. And so the Jish Elementary School become the only Israeli public school teaching Aramaic, according to the education ministry.

Their efforts are mirrored in Beit Jala's Mar Afram school run by the Syrian Orthodox church and located just a few miles (kilometers) from Bethlehem's Manger Square.

There, priests have taught the language to their 320 students for the past five years.

Some 360 families in the area descend from Aramaic-speaking refugees who in the 1920s fled the Tur Abdin region of what is now Turkey.

Priest Butros Nimeh said elders still speak the language but that it vanished among younger generations. Nimeh said they hoped teaching the language would help the children appreciate their roots.

Although both the Syrian Orthodox and Maronite church worship in Aramaic, they are distinctly different sects.

The Maronites are the dominant Christian church in neighboring Lebanon but make up only a few thousand of the Holy Land's 210,000 Christians. Likewise, Syrian Orthodox Christians number no more than 2,000 in the Holy Land, said Nimeh. Overall, some 150,000 Christians live in Israel and another 60,000 live in the West Bank.

Both schools found inspiration and assistance in an unlikely place: Sweden. There, Aramaic-speaking communities who descended from the Middle East have sought to keep their language alive.

They publish a newspaper, "Bahro Suryoyo," pamphlets and children's books, including "The Little Prince," and maintain a satellite television station, "Soryoyosat," said Arzu Alan, chairwoman of the Syriac Aramaic Federation of Sweden.

There's also an Aramaic soccer team, "Syrianska FC" in the Swedish top division from the town of Sodertalje. Officials estimate the Aramaic-speaking population at anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 people.

For many Maronites and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, the television station, in particular, was the first time they heard the language outside church in decades. Hearing it in a modern context inspired them to try revive the language among their communities.

"When you hear (the language), you can speak it," said Issa, the teacher.

Aramaic dialects were the region's vernacular from 2,500 years ago until the sixth century, when Arabic, the language of conquering Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, became dominant, according to Fassberg.

Linguistic islands survived: Maronites clung to Aramaic liturgy and so did the Syrian Orthodox church. Kurdish Jews on the river island of Zakho spoke an Aramaic dialect called "Targum" until fleeing to Israel in the 1950s. Three Christian villages in Syria still speak an Aramaic dialect, Fassberg said.

With few opportunities to practice the ancient tongue, teachers in Jish have tempered expectations. They hope they can at least revive an understanding of the language.

The steep challenges are seen in the Jish school, where the fourth-grade Aramaic class has just a dozen students. The number used to be twice that until they introduced an art class during the same time slot — and lost half their students.
___
AP writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report. Follow Hadid on twitter.com/diaahadid
On the Web: an Aramaic newspaper: www.bahro.nu, an Aramaic football team: www.syrianskafc.com and an Aramaic satellite television station: http://www.suryoyosat.com/

Oldest evidence found of Bethlehem

Oldest evidence found of Bethlehem

JERUSALEM - Israeli archaeologists have discovered a 2,700-year-old seal that bears the inscription "Bethlehem," the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday, in what experts believe to be the oldest artifact with the name of Jesus' traditional birthplace.

The tiny clay seal's existence and age provide vivid evidence that Bethlehem was not just the name of a fabled biblical town, but also a bustling place of trade linked to the nearby city of Jerusalem, archaeologists said. Eli Shukron, the authority's director of excavations, said the find was significant because it is the first time the name "Bethlehem" appears outside of a biblical text from that period.

Shukron said the seal, 0.59 inches in diameter, dates back to the period of the first biblical Jewish Temple, between the eighth and seventh century B.C., at a time when Jewish kings reigned over the ancient kingdom of Judah and 700 years before Jesus was born. The seal was written in ancient Hebrew script from the same time. Pottery found nearby also dated to the same period, he said.

Shmuel Achituv, an outside expert in ancient scripts at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, said the discovery was the oldest reference to Bethlehem ever found outside of the Bible. Apart from the seal, the other mentions of Bethlehem, Achituv said, "are only in the Bible."

The stamp, also known as "fiscal bulla," was likely used to seal an administrative tax document, sent from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, the seat of Jewish power at the time.

Shukron said the seal was found months ago, but they needed time to confirm the identity of the artifact. He said the first line most likely read "Beshava'at" -- or "in the seventh" -- most likely the year of the reign of a king. The second line, he said, has the crumbling letters of the word "Bethlehem." The third line carried one letter, a "ch" which Shukron said was the last letter of the Hebrew work for king, "melech."

Hebrew words often do not have vowels, which are understood from the context, making several interpretations of the same word plausible. Some of the letters are crumbled, or were wiped away. There are only about 40 other existing seals of this kind from the first Jewish Temple period, said Achituv, making this a significant find, both because such seals are rare, and because this is the first to mention Bethlehem.

The dig outside Jerusalem's Old City walls has raised controversy. It is being underwritten by an extreme-right wing Jewish organization that seeks to populate the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan with Jewish settlers, arguing that they have ancient links to the area.

Palestinian prisoners agree to end hunger strike

Palestinian prisoners agree to end hunger strike

By DIAA HADID and IAN DEITCH | Associated Press – 15 hrs ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed to halt a weekslong hunger strike on Monday in exchange for promises of better conditions, ending a standoff that left several participants clinging to life and drew thousands of Palestinians to the streets in shows of solidarity.

The Palestinians won key concessions in a deal mediated by Egyptian officials, including more family visits and limits to a controversial Israeli policy that can imprison people for years without charge. In return, Israel extracted pledges by militant groups to halt violent activities, and prevented the potentially explosive scenario of prisoners dying of hunger.

The fate of the prisoners deeply emotional for Palestinians, where nearly everyone has a neighbor or relative who has spent time in an Israeli jail. Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip each day to show solidarity with the inmates, often holding pictures of their imprisoned loved ones.

In Gaza City, Palestinians cried for joy and praised God over blaring loudspeakers upon news of the deal. "God is Great! To God is our thanks!" they chanted. Thousands waved the colorful Palestinian flag, distributed sweets and prostrated themselves in thanks. The deal ended one of the largest mass strikes of Palestinian prisoners. Two men launched the strike on Feb. 28, refusing food for 77 days, becoming the longest ever Palestinian hunger strikers. At least 1,600 other Palestinian prisoners, more than a third of the prison population, joined the strike on April 17, fasting for 27 days.

With the Palestinians already planning mass demonstrations for their annual day of mourning on Tuesday, both sides were eager to reach agreement to avoid spreading anger over the issue. Palestinians use May 15 to commemorate their suffering that resulted from Israel's establishment 64 years ago, a day they call the "nakba" or "catastrophe."

"The prisoners have proved to the whole world that empty stomachs are more powerful than any ruler or oppressor," said a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas rulers, Fawzi Barhoum.

Israel agreed to allow some 400 prisoners from Gaza to receive family visits for the first time since 2006, according to terms of the deal as confirmed by Israeli and Palestinian officials. Israel halted the family visits after Hamas captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006. But the soldier was returned in a prisoner swap last October and Palestinians wanted the ban to end.

"We were on strike for a simple right: to visit our children. My dream was that Ali would be freed — but at least now I can see him," said Nidal Sarafiti, a 64-year-old Gazan, speaking of his son, who has served seven years of an 18 year sentence for involvement in militant activity. He said he hadn't seen his son since he was imprisoned.

Roughly 20 prisoners released from solitary confinement back into the general prison population. Those included Hamas member Abdullah al-Barghouthi, serving 67 life sentences for helping to plan a series of suicide bombings that killed scores of civilians. He has been in solitary confinement since 2003, said Ehteram Ghazawneh of Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer.

In another key demand by prisoners, Israel agreed to ease its policy of "administrative detention," in which prisoners are held for months, even years, without charge.

The Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said the 300 detainees held without charge would have their files reviewed after six months. The detentions could only be extended if Israel presents concrete evidence against them to a military court.

Israel had been reluctant to concede to the Palestinian demands, worried it would spark more collective action. Officials noted that many of the hunger strikers were convicted of perpetrating, or being involved, in attacks that killed civilians.

"This deal was a serious mistake, instead of making things tougher for the terrorists they are giving them gifts," said Danny Danon, an Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud Party.

Israel's Shin Bet security agency said the prisoners pledged to stop helping to plan and conduct attacks from inside Israeli jails via networks that enable contact with the outside world. It also said militant group's commanders outside the jails made a commitment "to prevent terror activity." It said militant violence or resumed prisoner strikes would "annul the Israeli commitment."

This action was sparked by a hunger strike by Khader Adnan, a spokesman for the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. Adnan fasted for 66 days this year to demand his release from incarceration without charge.

After days of negotiations, Egypt's ambassador to Israel, Yasser Rida, personally presented the deal to a Palestinian strike committee that was gathered in an Israeli prison in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, officials said.

The two longest strikers, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, had said they would not start eating again until their administrative detentions are lifted. They have survived by occasionally taking infusions of nutrients.

Diab has been held without charge since last August, and Halahleh has been in administrative detention since June 2010, and spent an additional six and a half years in administrative detention last decade. Both men are Islamic Jihad members, but Israel has not said what they were suspected of doing.

For families of the prisoners, any deal that did not win freedom for their loved ones fell short.

"Will they release Bilal? Is it over?" asked Missadeh Diab, the elderly mother of a hunger striker. "May God give your demands and freedom."

___

Haitham Hamad in Ramallah, West Bank and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report. Follow Hadid on twitter.com/diaahadid

Palestinian prisoners on mass hunger strike

Palestinian prisoners on mass hunger strike

In this Sunday, May 6, 2012 photo, Palestinian schoolgirls chant slogans during a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel in the West Bank village of Kufr Rai near Jenin. According to Israel's Prison Service at least one-third of the 4,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israel began a collective hunger strike in mid-April 2012. The Arabic on the poster, center left, reads, "the strike will continue, Bilal Nabil Diab," on the poster left, "freedom to Bilal Diab, and all the prisoners." Photo: Mohammed Ballas / AP

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Palestinian-prisoners-on-mass-hunger-strike-3539901.php#ixzz1uFsfhJ3X
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A bearded Islamist who lived on liquids and minerals for 66 days to protest his open-ended incarceration in Israel, winning his freedom, has inspired more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners to follow him, putting pressure on Israel.

The prisoners who have joined the strike in recent weeks are demanding better conditions and an end to imprisonment without charges.


The mass action could leave Israel with tough choices. It does not want to be seen as caving in to prisoners, many of whom were involved in deadly attacks — but it might face a harsh, even violent reaction if any of them die.


Some say the strike also is an expression of the frustration that many Palestinians feel as they exhaust options to pressure Israel.


"Hunger-striking was the only thing I could have done," said Khader Adnan, who was released by Israel last month after his 66-day hunger strike. "It was the only power I had: disobedience."


The militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which have killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the years, have spearheaded the current hunger strike.


Their embrace of a tactic made famous by the legendary Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi underscores how Palestinians have reduced their use of violence since a bloody uprising against Israel a decade ago. The groups still use violence to further their goals, but say they are inspired by the success of mass protests during the Arab Spring uprisings.


Israel says the militants may have changed their tactics but have not abandoned their goal of eliminating the Jewish state.

According to prison officials, at least 1,600 of the 4,600 Palestinians held by Israel are refusing food. Palestinians say about 2,500 strikers are striking.


Most of the protesters joined the strike on April 17. Two others, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, have been striking for 70 days.

Diab is shackled to a civilian hospital bed, according to Hadas Ziv of Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Halahleh is under medical supervision in a prison clinic with nine other hunger strikers, and most have refused food for more than 50 days, according to Israel's prison service.


Some are taking liquids and mineral supplements, while others are refusing even that, said prison spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.

Ziv said hunger strikers generally faced grave dangers after 40 days.


If any of them die, it could unleash a broader backlash. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders have warned of retaliation. It could also encourage Palestinians to take to the streets.


The strikers include militants serving multiple life sentences for participating in deadly attacks against Israeli civilians.

Also among them are men detained without charge for indefinite periods of time, a system called "administrative detention," including Diab and Halahleh.


Adnan, an Islamic Jihad member who urged Palestinians to kill Israeli civilians, was also held under administrative detention before he was freed in exchange for ending his hunger strike.


Israeli officials say administrative detention is used when a person is considered an immediate threat to security, and where airing evidence would endanger intelligence-gathering networks. About 300 Palestinians are in administrative detention.


The prisoners' main demand is an end to the practice, halt solitary confinement and allow families from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to visit. Israel stopped the family visits after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier in 2006. The soldier came home in a prisoner swap last October, and Palestinians say the punitive practice should end.


The current hunger strike has aroused empathy among Palestinians, where most families knows someone who has spent time in an Israeli jail. Even so, demonstrations supporting them have been small.


In the northern West Bank town of Kufr Rai, Diab's hometown, some 150 high school girls chanted in support of the striker recently, holding his picture and waving a Palestinian flag. Nearby, residents flitted in and out of a solidarity tent decked with pictures of the hunger strikers.


"If I could speak to my son, I would say: 'May your morale be high, may God be pleased with you. We are worried about you. Your blood isn't cheap, you are worth more than all the world," said Diab's mother, Missadeh.


Israeli officials say that giving in to prisoners' demands would embolden them. They cite the deal struck with Adnan, saying it only encouraged hundreds more to refuse food.


"We can't have a situation where every terrorist who goes on a hunger strike gets a 'get out of jail free' card," said Israeli spokesman Mark Regev.


A committee has been appointed to look into the demands, said prison spokeswoman Weizman.


On Monday, Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Diab and Halahleh to declare an end date to their open-ended detention, but the court urged security services to investigate further before extending their terms again.


Israel has held Diab since last August, according to the Palestinian prisoner rights' group Addameer. Halahleh has been held without charge since mid-2010, and previously spent more than six years in administrative detention. Both belong to Islamic Jihad.

Diab's brother, Issam, said his brother's 70-day fast has been worth it.


"If he dies, that would be tragic," he said. "But this is freedom, and there is a heavy price for freedom."

_________

Hadid reported from Jerusalem. Additional reporting by Mohammed Ballas in Kufr Rai, West Bank, and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Follow Hadid on twitter.com/diaahadid

Hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners hospitalized

Mohammed Ballas / AP

Palestinians chant slogans during a rally in a West Bank village near Jenin, West Bank, supporting to Palestinian prisoner Bilal Diab, who is on a hunger strike to protest detention without trial, Friday, May 4, 2012. The Arabic on the poster reads, "the strike will continue..till freedom, glory, and dignity." A Palestinian rights group said recently that half of about 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel are on a hunger strike, demanding an end to imprisonment without trial as well as better conditions.

Hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners hospitalized

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press. Saturday, May 5, 2012.

JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) -- Ten Palestinian prisoners participating in a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails were placed under medical supervision as their conditions worsened, officials said Saturday.

The ten men are among 1,500 to 2,500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand better conditions and an end to detention without trial.

Although Israeli officials and Palestinians give different numbers of hunger strikers, it is still one of the largest prison protests in years.

It involves a quarter to a half of all Palestinians held in Israeli jails, estimated at some 4,600 people. The reasons for their detentions range from throwing stones to killing civilians in brutal militant attacks.

Most them began refusing food 19 days ago, but a smaller core have been striking longer, from periods of time ranging from 40 to almost 70 days.

Prison spokeswoman Sivan Weizeman said the 10 were transferred to a prison clinic for medical supervision. Weizeman did not say when they were transferred or what medical treatment they are currently receiving.

Sahar Francis of Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner rights group, said the men were moved at different times last week. She said the men under medical supervision were those who had been on hunger strike the longest.

Another prisoner, Bilal Diab, was moved to a civilian hospital last week. He has refused food for 68 days so far.

The prisoners' chief demands are a halt to imprisonment without charges for periods ranging from months to years, in a system called "administrative detention."

They are also demanding an end to solitary confinement, and reinstating family visits from Gaza. They also have smaller demands, such as being allowed to take a photo with their families once a year, instead of just once during their prison term.

Israeli officials say they use administrative detention to hold Palestinians who pose an immediate threat to the country's security. They say they keep the evidence secret from lawyers and the accused, because it would expose their intelligence-gathering networks if it was released.

Solitary confinement is used to keep influential prisoners away from the rest of the population.

So far, Israeli prison authorities have responded by isolating the hunger strikers, denying them family visits and engaging with those prisoners who are not on strike.

The prisoners' conditions is one of the most emotive issues for Palestinians, many of whom have had a loved one behind bars at some point. They are seen as heroes, regardless of the reason for their detention.

Leading members of the militant Islamic group Hamas, which rules the tiny neighboring seaside territory of Gaza, have warned Israel that if any of the prisoners die while on hunger strike, they will retaliate.

This wave of strikes appears inspired by protests carried out by Palestinian prisoners Khader Adnan and Hana Shalabi earlier this year. Adnan refused food for 66 days to demand an end to his incarceration without trial, while Shalabi refused food for 43 days.

Adnan and Shalabi both belong to Islamic Jihad, a militant group vowed to Israel's violent destruction. Both were held in administrative detention; neither were ever charged with a crime.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/05/international/i032614D36.DTL#ixzz1u0K5fMad