Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas late on Tuesday called on the international community to intervene urgently in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

“Things may get out of control if the lives of the hunger strikers are not saved,” Abbas said on Palestinian television.

“We ask the international community to respond effectively to ease the situation, otherwise it will be impossible to control and it will deteriorate across the Palestinian territories.

“These prisoners are on hunger strike in response to the policy of administrative detention and ill-treatment by the occupying authorities,” he added in reference to Israel.

Abbas singled out four detainees in need of special attention -- Samer Assawi, Jaafar Ezzedine, Ayman Sharawneh, and Tareq Qaadan.

The Palestinian leader also sent an urgent letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the health and living conditions for the hunger strikers, as well as to demand their release.

Separately, Egyptian forces have flooded smuggling tunnels under the border with the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip in a campaign to shut them down, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said.  

The network of tunnels is a vital lifeline for Gaza, bringing in an estimated 30 per cent of all goods that reach the enclave and circumventing a blockade imposed by Israel for more than seven years.  

“The Egyptians have topened the water to drown the tunnels,” said Abu Ghassan, who supervises the work of 30 men at one tunnel some 200 metres from the border fence. 

An Egyptian security official in the Sinai said the campaign started five days ago.    “We are using water to close the tunnels by raising water from one of the wells,” he said, declining to be named. 

Dozens of tunnels had been destroyed since last August following the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in a militant attack near the Gaza fence. Separately, Egypt also expressed “concern” for the well-being of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons and warned that endangering their lives could inflame tensions in Palestinian territories.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr “expressed his concern over reports about the deteriorating health of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails, especially Samer Assawi and Ayman Sharawneh,” a ministry statement said.