A top Palestinian militant on hunger strike for nearly two weeks has been transferred to the hospital wing of an Israeli prison near Tel Aviv, a Palestinian MP said Sunday.Ahmed Saadat, secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), began refusing food on April 17 as part of a mass hunger strike which is now being observed by least 1,350 prisoners held by Israel.
Ahmed Saadat was transferred to the hospital wing of Ramle prison but we dont have any details about his condition, said Khalida Jarrar, one of the PFLPs three serving MPs.
She said Saadat, who was being held in Rimon prison in the southern Negev desert, had been refusing food for 13 days after starting an open-ended hunger strike along with some 1,200 other prisoners, a number which has since grown.
Israel is responsible for his life because he is in an Israeli prison, she said.
| Israel serves three halal meals a day to his prison cell door. If he doesn't eat them that's his problem. Ms. Jarrar should reflect on how Saadat would be doing if the Israelis really were as evil as she believes them to be... |
He was transferred to the prison medical facility due to his advanced age, in order to enable closer supervision, Sivan Weizman told AFP. He is in good condition.
Saadat, who is in his late 50s, is serving a 30-year sentence on charges of heading a terror organisation.
He was initially accused of masterminding the killing of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in October 2001, but prosecutors later dropped that charge.
Last October, he was rushed to hospital after collapsing following 21 days without food.
An Israeli court on Friday charged four Palestinian militants in the 2001 assassination of a Cabinet minister, two months after troops snatched the men in a brazen military raid on a Palestinian jail in the West Bank. The suspects, members of the radical 
Israel's attorney general has said that he did not find enough evidence to put on trial a senior Palestinian militant accused of masterminding the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister. 
AMMAN King Abdullah warned that a strike on Iran would cause the region "to explode" and deplored Israel's raid on a Palestinian prison, in an interview Wednesday with AFP. "A strike against Iran would cause the whole region to explode," the Monarch said in comments on the crisis between the West and Tehran over its nuclear activities. "The threat to regional security and stability will be grave if force is utilised to resolve this problem. Dialogue, patience and diplomacy are the only solution." 
Mahmoud Abbas has condemned Israel's raid on a West Bank prison and seizure of a militant leader as a crime that would not be forgiven. Across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Palestinians went on strike over an Israeli operation that has boosted interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of March 28 general elections.