Some 120 Palestinians held by Israel without any trial began refusing food on April 24 in protest at their detention. Since then the number has risen closer to 300.

Israel's Prisons Service say 70 have been hospitalized.

Israel detains any Palestinian ‘suspected’ of security offences saying that it wants to avoid any court proceedings that could expose sensitive intelligence information - a practice that has drawn international criticism.

The hospitalization of the Palestinian prisoners has raised fears about a possible death in custody.

Force-feeding is considered a grave breach of World Medical Association’s guideline on a treatment for hunger strikers. Doctors’ associations also say that force-feeding would amount to torturing the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has voiced concerns over the deteriorating health of Palestinian detainees in administrative detention.

More than 5,000 Palestinians are reportedly being held in Israeli prisons, nearly 200 of them under administrative detention orders.

SHI/SHI