PFLP military wing to Netanyahu: Don't test us

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Tuesday warned the Israeli government not to harm Palestinian detainees.

"We say to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu: Don't test us because we are faithful to our leaders," the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades said in a statement.

PFLP affiliates detained in Israel started a mass hunger strike on Sept. 27 to protest prison conditions and the ongoing solitary confinement of their leader Ahmad Saadat.

Saadat is also on hunger strike, and the head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Society legal team Jawad Boulos said Monday he had visited the Popular Front leader in Israel's Nafha prison on Sunday night, and described his condition as "very worrying."

Israel has held Saadat in isolation for three years. He was found guilty of ordering the murder of Israel's tourism minister in 2001.

The head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet Yoram Cohen said Tuesday that Saadat would not be included in a deal to free Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.