RAMALLAH, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian prisoner, who has been on hunger strike for 197 days, stepped up his struggle on Tuesday by rejecting to drink water.
The prisoner, Samer Issawi, has also decided to boycott medical checkups and vitamins to put more pressure on Israel, said the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoner Club in a statement.
Issawi and another prisoner, Ayman Sharawneh, who has been starving since July, demand to be either released or charged.
Israel detained the two prisoners in administrative detention, which allows them to be held based on secret evidences or without a trial.
The two prisoners were freed along with hundreds of others in a swap deal between Islamic Hamas movement and Israel in October 2011, but Israel arrested them later.
"Issawi is staying at his prison's clinic and has lost weight, reaching 47 kilograms," the statement said.
Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riad al-Maliki said the issue of the hunger-striking prisoners has been raised during the ongoing meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Cairo.
"There are Palestinian efforts to mobilize an active Islamic attitude that would put pressures on the Israeli government to release the prisoners," Al-Maliki told Voice of Palestine radio.
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