Hunger-striker to be freed to Gaza: Prisoners' Club

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories - Agence France-Presse

Supporters of the Palestinian hunger strike prisoner Samer Issawi demonstrate outside the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem during a hearing for his case on February 19, 2013. AFP PHOTO/MARCO LONGARI

A Palestinian prisoner on long-term hunger strike has inked a deal with Israel which will see him freed to exile in Gaza for 10 years, a prisoners' rights group said Sunday.

"Palestinian prisoner Ayman Sharawna, who has been on hunger strike since mid-July, has reached a deal with the Israeli side under which he will be released to Gaza and exiled there for 10 years," Qadura Fares, head of the Ramallah-based Prisoners' Club, told AFP.

A spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service confirmed the deal, saying Sharawna would be released on Sunday.

"He will be released in a few hours," she told AFP.

Sharawna is a 36-year-old prisoner who has been intermittently refusing food for more than seven months.

He was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 38 years behind bars, but released in October 2011 under terms of a prisoner swap deal.

But he was rearrested three months later and charged with violating the terms of his release, although the evidence against him was kept secret.