UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- A leading UN humanitarian agency on Thursday "strongly protests" Israel's use of Palestine refugee schools as detention and interrogation center for hundredsof suspects.

    The abuse is "a flagrant violation of UN privileges and immunities," The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugeesin the Near East (UNRWA) said in a press release issued at the UN headquarters in New York.

    The agency said that Israeli military forces broke into its girls' school in Askar Refugee Camp in the West bank on Tuesday. "This was not the first such abuse of the agency's humanitarian installations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with at least 10 schools having previously been occupied," it said.

    "In all these cases, the Agency has also protested to the Israeli authorities, but without result, as the most recent violation reflects," it added.

    Meanwhile, the New York-based Bureau of the UN Committee on theExercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People has expressed "grave concern at the systematic violation of the rightsof Palestinian prisoners" in Israeli prisons, where over 3,000 detainees, including hundreds of ailing prisoners, are now on hunger strike.

    "The prisoners are routinely subjected to inhumane conditions of incarceration, including arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings,humiliating strip searches, solitary confinement for excessive periods of time, and severe restrictions on family visits," the bureau said in a statement. Enditem