Qaddoura Faris, head of Nadi Al-Asir and former minister of prisoners affairs, said the “prisoners suspended the hunger strike that they started on Sept. 27 after an agreement reached between their representatives and the Israeli Prison Service to end the policy of solitary confinement.”

Faris said the new policy has been put in practice following a prisoner swap between Israel and the Hamas movement.

The official said the agreement would end the isolation of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, the secretary-general of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmad Sa’adat and the Hamas leader Jamal Abu Al-Haija.

Sa’adat was rushed to hospital on Monday after collapsing following his participation in the hunger protest against his solitary confinement for the last four years. Around 6,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners began 21 days ago a hunger strike in 25 Israeli jails, protesting the tightened IPS measures on their daily life and against their families.

The strikers wanted improved food quality, restrictions on family visitations eased, access to university education, books in prisons, telephones, Arab satellite channels, cessation of strip searches, end of solitary confinement and financial fines on prisoners.