Prison (illustrative)
Prison (illustrative)Flash90

An Islamic terrorist serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison has declared an open-ended hunger strike in protest at his solitary confinement, a Palestinian Arab "support group" told AFP Sunday - hours before the strike ended. 

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners' Club said that about 200 other Palestinian Arabs spread across several Israeli jails would fast in solidarity with former Hamas terrorist Ibrahim Hamed, taking it in turns to each go without food for limited periods.

The club told AFP that high-profile inmates including Fatah arch-terrorist Marwan Barghuti and Ahmed Saadat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, could join the rolling hunger strike.

Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told AFP that by early Sunday afternoon Hamed had refused two meals.She said, without elaborating, that he was placed in isolation three months ago "on suspicion of involvement in forbidden activity."

But early Sunday afternoon a spokeswoman for the club said the issue had been resolved and he was to be transferred to Nafha prison in southern Israel's Negev desert.

"An agreement was reached to end Hamed's solitary confinement," she told AFP"So the prisoners have withdrawn their decision to begin a hunger strike."

An Israeli military court in 2012 sentenced Hamed  to multiple life sentences after convicting him of ordering the killing of dozens of Israelis and wounding hundreds.

Some 1,550 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel ended a hunger strike in May 2012, in exchange for a package of measures which would allow visits from relatives in Gaza and the transfer of detainees out of solitary confinement.

This time, it is also possible the hunger strike could be orchestrated as retaliation for Israel refusing to release a fourth batch of Palestinian Arab terrorists as part of ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Last month, several terrorist prisoners vowed to campaign for their own release, including via a possible hunger strike.