BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Aug 20 (AFP) - Israel moved its most famous Palestinian detainee, West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghuthi, to a prison wing normally reserved for Israeli common criminals Friday, as punishment for a hunger strike he is suspected of leading, a prisoners' group said.
The Israeli prisons service, which runs the jail in the southern town of Beersheba, was not immediately available for comment on the report from the Palestinian Prisoners' Club.
According to the group, Barghuti, who is lionised by many Palestinians for his role in the nearly four-year-old intifada or uprising, now faces routine abuse from Israeli prisoners whenever he leaves his isolation cell.
He had previously been held with other Palestinians whose crimes are regarded as politically motivated.
A significant proportion of the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in israeli jails began an open-ended hunger strike for better conditions last Sunday which Israel has been determined to break.
Barbecues are reported to have been set up in prison courtyards and extra bread and cakes cooked in prison kitchens, while warders have been instructed to eat in front of inmates.
Barghuti, who was handed five life terms for murder by an Israeli court on June 6, is among the hunger strikers.