File photo: Irene Grapel, left, watches her son, Emory University law student Ilan Grapel run to greet family and friends after she and Congressman Gary Ackerman brought him home from Israel to JFK airport on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 (Photo: AP)
Egyptian prisoners in Israel have begun an open-ended hunger strike to demand their release.
The 65 Egyptians are held in various prisons in the Negev Desert in the South of Israel.
Ibrahim El-Darawi, head of the Palestinian Studies Centre in Cairo, said that the prisoners opted to begin a hunger strike because they want to be released, especially because he said they are detained for political and not criminal crimes.
El-Darawi added that the prisoners are angry because they were not among those swapped for Ilan Grapel, the Israeli-American who was detained in Egypt in June 2011 on charges of espionage.
In October 2011, Grapel was released in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners in Israel.
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