Scores of Palestinians on hunger strikers ended their protest against detention without trial on Wednesday after winning limited concessions from Israel - but no major policy change. About 120 Palestinians on so-called "administrative detention" began fasting April 24. Over the past two months they were joined by 180 others. About 75 needed hospitalization, fueling debate in Israel over a proposed force-feeding law.
Previous hunger strikes stirred international sympathy for the Palestinians and ended with some inmates being released. But this protest was largely eclipsed by diplomatic crises over the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks after rival Palestinian factions signed a unity deal and by the June 12 kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank. A prisoner advocate said Israel agreed to remove the punishments imposed on the detainees and other measures. "We are not talking about a big, clear victory in the procedural, practical sense," Qadoura Fares said.
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