Islamic Jihad Prisoners End Their Hunger Strike

The Islamic Jihad movement's prisoners on Friday said that they reached an agreement with the Israeli prisons administration to lift "all punitive measures taken against them" and end the hunger strike.

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The Supreme Leadership Council of the movement's prisoners said in a statement that the Israeli side initiated the move to reach an understanding to end the hunger strike.

The deal stipulates "the immediate cessation of the frenzied attack against the sons of Islamic Jihad in the occupation prisons and the lifting of all punitive measures against them," the statement said.

It pointed out that the prisoners agreed with the prison administration to "restore the representation, structure and organizational entity of the Islamic Jihad movement in the occupation prisons."

The agreement also guarantees ending solitary confinement of the movement's members and improving living condition of its female inmates.

On Oct. 13, around 250 Palestinian detainees from the Islamic Jihad group began an open-ended hunger strike to protest Israel's punitive measures against prisoners.

The punitive measures included not allowing more than one prisoner from the movement to stay in each cell.

Prison authorities have imposed punitive measures against Islamic Jihad prisoners after six inmates tunneled out of the high security Gilboa prison last month in northern Israel.

Five were from the Islamic Jihad group.

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The prisoners were captured by Israeli forces almost one week after their escape.

There are around 4,850 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, including 40 women, 225 children and 40 administrative detainees, according to institutions concerned with prisoners' affairs.