The protest to demand better conditions was led by Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent detainee and a figure often seen as a future Palestinian leader.

Marwan Barghouti writes, “Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday called on the international community to “intervene quickly to save the lives” of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who earlier in the day launched a mass hunger strike to protest their conditions of imprisonment.

Israeli forces reportedly used live fire to disperse protests outside the Ofer Prison in the West Bank on Monday wounding at least five people, while seven others were hurt in a series of demonstrations in support of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners.

Lina Jarbouni, 43 years old, from Arabet Al-Boutof in Galilee, has been imprisoned since 18 April 2002. Jarbouni was charged with communicating with the “enemy,” and sentenced by the District Court in the city of Haifa to 17 years in jail.

The Prime Minister and Commissioner-General also reviewed the important issue of the curriculum being taught in UNRWA schools in light of recent public misrepresentations of the matter.

“For (Palestinian) Jerusalemites, the Jewish holiday season means an escalation in arbitrary detentions, house raids, and searches — measures that terrify families. The installation of additional security checkpoints, particularly at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (compound)’s gates and in the Old City, only increase tensions in Jerusalem,” Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) head in Jerusalem Nadi Qaws told Ma’an last week.

The Jordanian government condemned Israel for violations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem over the past week, which has seen hundreds of right-wing Israelis under armed protection touring and praying at the compound for the Jewish holiday of Passover.

After the soldiers were picked up by PA security forces, they were taken to a Nablus police station for a “check,” the army added. A short while later they were handed back over to the IDF.

“This is a very important visit in which we hope to agree on the fundamentals to revive the peace process and discuss bilateral relations,” Ahmed Majdalani told The Jerusalem Post in a phone call.

After the besieged Gaza Strip’s sole power plant shut down Sunday, as fuel supplies that were funded by Qatar and Turkey in January dried up, Gaza’s electricity company announced Monday that that the total available power supply was less than one third of the daily consumption in the coastal enclave.

Israeli forces raided Hebron city in the southern occupied West Bank before dawn Monday, shutting down and sealing off two bookstores after confiscating materials.

Bedouin and herder communities are among the poorest and most marginalized populations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…The aim of this paper is to describe the challenges facing rangeland management in the OPT and the possibilities for change.