Greek workers walk off the job to protest ban on teachers' strike

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek state workers walked off the job on Tuesday to protest a government decision to ban a strike by high-school teachers, shutting down schools and reducing staff at hospitals to a minimum.

Invoking emergency powers under Greek law, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has threatened teachers with arrest and dismissal if they begin a planned walkout on Friday that would disrupt university entrance exams, as he tries to show Greece's foreign lenders that Athens is sticking to unpopular reforms.

This is the latest in a string of anti-austerity strikes since the country adopted severe budget and wage cut measures as part of its international bailout in 2010.

But fewer and fewer workers have been heeding trade union calls to down tools because the strikes have failed to stop the government from implementing austerity measures and increasingly impoverished Greeks cannot afford to lose more wages.

"This is our response to the government's authoritarian policies against high-school teachers," public sector union ADEDY said in a statement, demanding a meeting with Samaras.

"These decisions are creating an explosive situation in the education sector with the victims being the teachers as well as students and their parents."

Teachers, doctors and local administration workers are to rally in central Athens around 0700 GMT (3 a.m. EDT). Municipal and local tax offices are expected to be shut during the 24-hour strike by ADEDY.

The union is also planning a four-hour work stoppage on Thursday in solidarity with protesting teachers. The country's largest private sector union, GSEE, will join the stoppage on Thursday.

The conservative-led coalition wants teachers to put in two more hours of work each week to reach the average levels of high school teachers' working hours in Europe, and transfer 4,000 of them to remote parts of Greece to plug staffing gaps.

These measures would allow the government to dismiss about 10,000 part-time teachers when their temporary contracts expire, teachers' union OLME said, calling for the 24-hour strike on Friday and rolling strikes next week.

The government invoked emergency powers on Sunday to block the teachers' strike, using a law that allows it to forcibly mobilize workers in the case of civil disorder or natural disasters.

Police started distributing the orders on Monday, forcing teachers to go to work on Friday or face arrest and dismissal.

GSEE and ADEDY represent more than half of Greece's workforce, which has been shrinking rapidly, reflecting the pain caused by the crippling recession after years of austerity.

"We are protesting against a government that continues its anti-democratic slide by implementing the usual, cruel measure of precautionary civil mobilization, with which it has replaced dialogue," GSEE said.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Harry Papachristou; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Amazon workers in Germany stage strike

BERLIN (AP) — A union representing workers at Amazon in Germany says members are striking in a push for higher wages from the online retailer.

The ver.di union said Tuesday it is urging Amazon to adopt wage agreements similar to those governing retail and mail-order workers. The union says those agreements include Christmas bonuses and extra pay for working nights, Sundays and holidays and could mean as much as 9,000 euros ($11,700) more annually for Amazon workers.

Amazon says its distribution warehouses in Germany are logistical centers, and employees are already paid on the upper end of what workers in the logistical industry earn.

Ver.di represents some 3,300 employees at Amazon's Bad Hersfeld center and another 2,000 in Leipzig and says both sites will take part in the one-day warning strike.

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Activists: Israeli strike kills 42 Syrian soldiers

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel's weekend airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, a group of anti-regime activists said Monday, citing information from military hospitals.

The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday's predawn airstrike, Israel's third into Syria so far this year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 150 soldiers are normally stationed in the area that was targeted, but that it was not clear how many were there at the time of the strike.

Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in strikes on Syria. However, Israeli officials said the strikes were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss covert military operations.

Israel on Monday signaled a return to "business as usual," with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving in China for a scheduled visit,

Syria and its patron Iran have hinted at possible retribution over the strikes, though the rhetoric in official statements has been relatively muted.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Monday that Israel was "playing with fire," but gave no other suggestions of possible consequences, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Syria's government called the attacks a "flagrant violation of international law" that has made the Middle East "more dangerous." It also claimed the Israeli strikes proved Israel's links to rebel groups trying to overthrow Assad's regime.

Israeli officials have indicated they will keep trying to block what they see as an effort by Iran to send sophisticated weapons to Lebanon's Hezbollah militia ahead of a possible collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to intervene in the Syrian civil war to stop the transfer of what it calls "game-changing" weapons to Hezbollah, a Syrian-backed group that battled Israel to a stalemate during a month-long war in 2006.

Since carrying out a lone airstrike in January that reportedly destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles headed to Hezbollah, Israel had largely stayed on the sidelines. That changed this weekend with the pair of airstrikes, including an attack near a sprawling military complex close to Damascus early Sunday that set off a series of powerful explosions.

A senior Israeli official said both airstrikes targeted shipments of Fateh-110 missiles bound for Hezbollah. The Iranian-made guided missiles can fly deep into Israel and deliver powerful half-ton bombs with pinpoint accuracy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a covert military operation.

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Yemen: US drone strike kills 4 al-Qaida suspects

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A Yemeni security official and witnesses say a U.S. drone strike killed at least four suspected al-Qaida militants in mountainous area south of the capital, Sanaa.

The four were killed while riding a vehicle in the desert area of Oussab al-Ali, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) south of Sanaa, the official said.

The region has become a hideout for al-Qaida militants since the Yemeni government intensified its offensive against their former strongholds in the south over the past several months.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

A witness in a nearby village said he saw columns of smoke rising into the sky after two explosions rocked the area on Wednesday.

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Israeli planes strike Gaza after rocket fire

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes struck targets early Wednesday in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire toward southern Israel, the first air strikes launched by Israel since an informal cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza.

An Israeli military statement issued Wednesday said its planes targeted "two extensive terror sites" with "accurate hits." Palestinian officials said no one was hurt in the air strikes and no damage was reported in northern Gaza.

The air raids followed the third successful rocket attack on Israel since the November cease-fire. The military reported that Gaza militants on Tuesday fired at least one rocket toward southern Israel. No one was hurt and no damage was caused. The attack was the first since rockets were fired during President Barack Obama's visit to Israel two weeks ago.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire. The Israeli military says it holds Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers responsible for any attack against the Jewish state.

Rocket fire has been rare since an informal cease-fire was reached last November. During eight days of violence in November, the Israeli military said 1,500 rockets were fired at Israel, including the first from Gaza to strike the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas. The rocket attacks killed six Israelis and wounded dozens. Israeli airstrikes killed 169 Palestinians, many of them militants, and caused considerable damage.

Earlier Tuesday, Palestinian prisoners rioted following news of a fellow inmate's death of cancer, and Israeli prison guards fired tear gas to quell the disturbances, an Israeli official said.

Palestinian officials said Israel was responsible for the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, charging medical negligence. The 64-year-old was serving a life sentence for his role in a foiled attempt to bomb a busy cafe in Jerusalem in 2002.

As news of Abu Hamdiyeh's death spread, Palestinian prisoners in several jails began banging on their cell doors and hurling objects. Later, protests spread to Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.

Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said three prisoners and six guards were evacuated for medical treatment after inhaling tear gas.

She said Abu Hamdiyeh was treated well by Israeli specialists and died in a hospital in Beersheba.

Weizman said the prison service asked the parole board for the prisoner's early release after his cancer was diagnosed as terminal last week, but the appeal was still being processed at the time of his death.

Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Karakeh blamed Israel. "This is a serious, ugly crime committed against the prisoner Maysara due to medical negligence and reluctance to release him," Karakeh said.

In Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was working to free Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

"We were surprised with the death of our brother prisoner," Abbas said. "We attempted to have him released and take him for treatment, but the Israeli government refused to release him, which led to his death."

Later Tuesday, protests spread to the West Bank city of Hebron, where protesters threw firebombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers. The troops responded with tear gas and other riot dispersal means, the military said.

Tensions are high in Israeli lockups, where thousands of Palestinian security prisoners are being held. Some have held hunger strikes and Palestinians have held large protests demanding their release.

After decades of conflict with Israel, the issue of prisoners is emotionally charged in Palestinian society. Inmates are highly esteemed regardless of the reasons for their incarceration, which range from mass murder to throwing rocks.

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Associated Press writer Aron Heller contributed to this report.

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Mortar shells strike Damascus, killing at least 10

BEIRUT (AP) — Mortar shells crashed into an outdoor cafe at Damascus University on Thursday, killing at least 10 students in the deadliest of a rising number of mortar attacks in the heart of the Syrian capital.

The strikes have escalated as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad try to enter the city, terrifying civilians whose support the opposition needs to advance its cause.

It was unclear who fired the rounds. The government blamed "terrorists," its blanket term for those fighting Assad's regime. Anti-regime activists accused the regime of staging the attack to turn civilians against the rebels.

Mortar strikes on Damascus are relatively new in Syria's crisis, which began in March 2011 with protests calling for Assad's ouster, then evolved into a civil war. The U.N. says more than 70,000 have been killed in the conflict.

Since last month, mortar shells have hit previously safe parts of the capital with increasing frequency. The near-daily strikes have frightened residents, and many have begun to avoid open areas and put plastic on their windows to help block flying glass from an explosion or shrapnel.

Some shells appear aimed at government targets, such as one of Assad's palaces and the general command of the Syrian army. Others have hit near civilian targets, including the Sheraton Hotel and a soccer stadium, both on the city's west side. Mortar shells also have struck in areas to the east, like the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma.

Thursday's strike was the deadliest yet.

State-run Al-Ikhbariya TV showed video of the university cafe where blood pooled on tiles and plastic chairs and pens and eyeglasses littered the area. Later video showed people being treated in a hospital, including a woman with white bandages around her head and a man whose back was peppered with shrapnel wounds.

The dining facility belongs to the Faculty of Architecture in Damascus's central Baramkeh district.

State TV said 15 people were killed in the strike, but the official news agency, SANA, put the death toll at 10 and said dozens were wounded. It also reported three other mortar strikes nearby.

The opposition activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll at 13.

Similar mortar attacks on Tuesday killed at least three people and wounded dozens. Six people were killed by mortar shells in different parts of the city on March 11.

"No one anywhere in the world can imagine a more criminal act than this," SANA quoted Amer al-Mardini, the president of the university, as saying. He said he hoped the wounded would heal quickly and "resume their studies as soon as possible."

Anti-regime activists accused the regime of launching the attack to tarnish the opposition's image.

Elizabeth O'Bagy, who studies the Syrian rebels at the Institute for the Study of War, said it was not possible to determine who was behind the attack, but it appeared to fit the regime's pattern of escalation. In other aspects of the war, such as the use of airstrikes or Scud missiles, the regime has gone from trying to target rebels to more indiscriminate attacks on civilians, she said.

"Because of the fact that it does follow regime behavior, it is more likely to be a regime attack," she said, while acknowledging it could also have been a rebel misfire.

Rebels have established footholds in a number of Damascus suburbs but have only been able to push into limited areas in the south and northeast parts of the capital. The government has retained its grip of downtown Damascus, although the mortar strikes have deepened fear among many residents that they will soon see the violence that has damaged many other Syrian cities.

Thursday was not the first time Syria's universities have been targeted. On Jan. 15, twin blasts hit Aleppo University, killing more than 80 people. The opposition said the regime had bombed the university, while the government accused rebels of striking it with rockets.

Also Thursday, Ghassan Hitto, the newly elected prime minister of the main opposition bloc, said he was reviewing candidates for a planned rebel interim government. It will be a service-oriented administration with nine to 12 ministries and will be based inside Syria, Hitto said during a meeting with Syrian expats in Qatar.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Mouaz al-Khatib, has decided to continue serving until his six-month term ends in May. Al-Khatib resigned on March 24, citing frustration with the group and its level of international support. The Coalition rejected his resignation.

Syria's conflict threatens to destabilize neighboring countries, where more than 1 million refugees have fled to escape the violence.

In Jordan, on Syria's southern border, a riot broke out Thursday in a refugee camp after Jordanian authorities refused to let buses full of refugees return to Syria because of violence over the border. U.N. refugee liaison Ali Bibi said it was unclear how many refugees were involved in the melee at the Zaatari camp, but no one was injured.

To the north, Turkey denied reports that it was deporting hundreds of Syrian refugees for rioting on Wednesday in a camp in Akcakale after a fire killed a 7-year-old child. A camp official said local authorities identified 300 people involved in the uprising and prepared to deport them, but the government stopped them.

A Foreign Ministry official said 100 refugees asked to leave the camp and return to Syria on their own.

The U.N. refugee agency did not confirm the reports, but said it was concerned about possible deportations of refugees.

In Israel, on Syria's southeastern border, the military said it was beefing up medical teams along the border because of several cases of wounded Syrians crossing the frontier for medical care. Eleven Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals, including one who died from his wounds on Wednesday, a military official said. Others returned home after their conditions improved.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

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Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Bradley Klapper in Washington; Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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Supreme Court indicates it may strike down marriage law

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the second day running, the Supreme Court on Wednesday will confront the issue of gay marriage, hearing arguments on a U.S. law that denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

Almost two hours of oral argument before the court will focus on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), just a day after the nine justices considered the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage.

Both cases come before the court as polls show growing support among Americans for gay marriage but division among the 50 states. Nine states recognize it; 30 states have constitutional amendments banning it and others are in-between.

Rulings in both cases are expected by the end of June.

DOMA limits the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. It permits benefits such as Social Security survivor payments and federal tax deductions only for married, opposite-sex couples, not for legally married same-sex couples.

President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law in 1996 after it passed Congress with only 81 of 535 lawmakers opposing it. Clinton, a Democrat, earlier this month said that times have changed since then and called for the law to be overturned.

In the California case argued on Tuesday, the justices seemed wary of endorsing a broad right for gay and lesbian couples to marry, as gay rights advocates had wanted. As a result, the Proposition 8 case is less likely to influence how the court approaches DOMA, which presents a narrower question.

The slightly lower-profile case being argued Wednesday focuses on whether Edith Windsor, who was married to a woman, should get the federal estate tax deduction available to heterosexuals when their spouses pass away.

Windsor's marriage to Thea Spyer was recognized under New York law, but not under DOMA. When Spyer died in 2009, Windsor was forced to pay federal estate tax because the federal government would not recognize her marriage. She sued the government, seeking a $363,000 tax refund.

Windsor's lawyers say the federal government has no role in defining marriage, which is traditionally left to states.

"It's the states that marry people," said James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is part of Windsor's legal team. "The federal government doesn't do that."

The roughly 133,000 gay couples nationwide, married in one of the nine states where it is legal, are not recognized as married by the federal government, Windsor's supporters say.

Various groups are calling for DOMA to be struck down, such as the Business Coalition for DOMA Repeal, whose members include Marriott International Inc, Aetna Inc, eBay Inc, and Thomson Reuters Corp, the corporate parent of the Reuters news agency.

OBAMA TURNS BACK ON DOMA

The Obama administration has agreed with Windsor that the section of law that defines marriage violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. The Justice Department has therefore declined to defend the statute, as it normally would when a federal statute is challenged.

That has left a legal group acting on behalf of the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives, known as the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, or BLAG, as the party defending the federal law. Its lawyer, Paul Clement, will argue that there are several reasons to support Congress' decision to enact DOMA.

Noting the strong bipartisan support the law attracted when it was first enacted, Clement said in court papers that a move to strike it down as unconstitutional "would be wholly unprecedented."

Before the court reaches that bigger question, preliminary matters could prevent the court deciding the case. One is whether BLAG has legal standing.

If such a procedural issue prevents the court from deciding the case on the merits, Windsor would win her refund. Yet DOMA would remain on the books in parts of the country where courts have not ruled on it. Further litigation would likely ensue.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Cynthia Osterman)

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Mortars strike Damascus, killing at least 4

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Mortars rounds struck several areas of Damascus on Tuesday, killing at least four people, a government official said, while anti-regime activists said Syrian troops seized control of a neighborhood in the central city of Homs that is considered a symbol of opposition to President Bashar Assad's regime.

The Syrian military's recapture of Baba Amr came as opposition representatives took the country's seat for the first time at an Arab League summit, a significant diplomatic boost for the rebellion.

The seesaw fight for the Homs neighborhood reflects the back-and-forth nature of Syria's 2-year-old civil war. While rebels appear to be gaining ground, their progress is slow and their fighters remain vulnerable to Assad's military superiority.

The regime has ample heavy weapons and a fleet of fighter jets but a shortage of ground troops, meaning it often abandons areas to rebel forces and then pounds them with artillery and airstrikes from afar, sometimes forcing rebel retreats. It also frequently claims to have "secured" areas only to report months later that it "secured" them again, with little explanation of how rebels got back in.

In Damascus, the SANA state news agency said mortar shells exploded in several parts of the city, killing at least three people and wounding others. Most of the strikes hit the city's east side, falling near a school in the Baramkeh neighborhood, the Damascus Hospital, the Law Faculty of Damascus University and the state news agency's own offices.

A government official told The Associated Press that four people had been killed and more than 40 wounded. The official spoken on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to brief the media.

SANA said one girl and two other civilians were killed.

Mortars rounds also fell in a number of areas on the city's west side, including the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma, SANA said.

The agency published photos of a hole in a wall of what appeared to be a school, medics treating blood-stained patients and firemen extinguishing burning cars.

It was not immediately clear who fired the mortars. Such sporadic attacks in the capital have grown more common in recent weeks as rebels have continued to clash with government troops on the city's east and south sides. While the shelling rarely causes many casualties, it has shattered the aura of normalcy the regime has tried to cultivate in Damascus.

SANA also reported the explosion of a car bomb near the predominately Kurdish neighborhood of Rukneddine. It gave no further details.

The government blamed "terrorists" for all the attacks, its blanket term for anti-Assad forces.

Also Tuesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that government forces pushed rebels from the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs after two weeks of clashes, shelling and airstrikes that destroyed many homes.

The state news agency said Monday that government forces had "restored security and stability" to the neighborhood.

A Homs-based government official confirmed to The Associated Press that regime troops took control of Baba Amr.

"Baba Amr is now a safe area," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements. He said clashes continued elsewhere in Homs.

Baba Amr, a poor, predominantly Sunni neighborhood in southwest Homs, emerged early in the uprising as a symbol of the rebel movement, first for its protests and later for the armed groups who held it against the regime onslaught.

While not strategically important in the civil war, the loss of Baba Amr is a symbolic blow to the rebels.

The government seized the neighborhood about a year ago after months of daily shelling that damaged much of the area and killed hundreds, including two foreign journalists who had sneaked in to report on the siege. It has changed hands a number of times since, with rebels saying early this month that they had taken advantage of a regime security lapse to take it back and set up checkpoints.

Also Tuesday, the Observatory said that at least 13 charred bodies, including those of four children and five women, were found on the outskirts of the village of Abil, southwest of Homs city.

The group, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria, circulated a video that showed charred and disfigured bodies placed on sheets. Some had holes in their heads and others appeared to have had their throats slit.

The video appeared authentic and corresponded with other reporting by The Associated Press.

The Observatory said local activists blamed the killings on pro-government thugs.

The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment and did not mention the killing in official media.

Meanwhile, at the Arab League summit in Qatar, a delegation led by the former president of the main opposition alliance, Mouaz al-Khatib, took the seats assigned for Syria to the applause of other delegates.

The decision for the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition to take Syria's seat was made at the recommendation of Arab foreign ministers meeting earlier this week in the Qatari capital, Doha. The Arab League in 2011 suspended the Syrian government's membership in the organization in response to the regime's crackdown on opponents.

The diplomatic triumph, however, could not conceal the disarray within the top ranks of the Syrian opposition.

Besides al-Khatib, the Syrian delegation included Ghassan Hitto, the recently elected prime minister of a planned interim government to administer rebel-held areas in Syria, and two prominent opposition figures, George Sabra and Suheir Atassi.

Addressing the gathering, al-Khatib thanked the Arab League for granting the seat to the opposition, saying "it is part of the restoration of legitimacy that the people of Syria have long been robbed of."

Even as rebel fighters gain ground in their fight against Assad's troops, their mostly exile political leadership has been crippled by infighting. Al-Khatib announced his resignation on Sunday because of what he described as restrictions on his work and frustration with the level of international aid for the opposition. The Coalition rejected the resignation and al-Khatib said he would discuss the issue later and represent the opposition at the Qatar summit "in the name of the Syrian people."

Hitto's own election as the head of the interim government also has triggered a backlash, with the head of the military council associated with the Coalition, Gen. Salim Idris, rejecting Hitto's nomination.

Some members have accused Qatar and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood of imposing their will on the Coalition.

In Damascus, the government on Tuesday blasted the Arab League's move to allow the opposition to take its seat at the Doha summit, portraying it a selling-out of Arab identity to please Israel and the United States.

The crisis began in March 2011 with protests demanding Assad's ouster. With a harsh government crackdown, the uprising steadily grew more violent until it became a full-fledged civil war. The United Nations estimates that more than 70,000 people have died so far in the conflict.

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Hubbard reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Hamza Hendawi in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Palestinian ends hunger strike in deal

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip (AP) — A freed Palestinian prisoner was given a hero's welcome in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening after ending his hunger strike in an Israeli jail and agreeing to a plea bargain that will confine him to the Hamas-run territory for the next 10 years.

After his release from Israeli custody, Ayman Sharawneh arrived at the Erez Crossing in an ambulance with its siren blaring and red lights flashing as dozens of TV cameramen and photographers precariously gathered around the vehicle as it crossed into Gaza. Dozens of Palestinians waved national flags and chanted slogans calling for freedom.

Sharawneh, 53, appeared weak, shaky and shrunken, and was taken to a hospital in Gaza City.

Sharawneh, a resident of the West Bank, had been refusing food since last July to protest his incarceration. His lawyer, Jawad Bulous, said Sharawneh accepted the offer of confinement to Gaza, fearing he would be sent to prison for decades in a military court hearing set for Monday.

"The occupation committed two crimes," Sharawneh said, referring to Israel. "Arresting me, and then keeping me away from my family. But in Gaza, I am also with my family," he said, his voice croaking as he spoke from his hospital bed.

Sharawneh, who was serving a 38-year prison sentence for participating in militant attacks, was among about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held for five years by Hamas militants in Gaza.

In one attack, he detonated an explosives-filled handbag in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, wounding more than a dozen people. He was also involved in a kidnapping attempt, according to Israel's Shin Bet security service.

He was arrested again in January 2012 after being accused of violating the terms of his release by making contact with members of the militant Islamic group Hamas. The military court could have ordered him to serve out the remainder of his original sentence.

Sharawneh began his hunger strike in July but halted it for a month, believing at the time he would be released.

His confinement to Gaza means he will be cut off from his family. It is difficult for Palestinians in the West Bank to obtain permission from Israeli military authorities to cross Israel to enter Gaza. The West Bank flanks Israel's east, while Hamas-ruled Gaza borders Israel in the southwest.

Even so, Sharawneh's mother said she was pleased. "It doesn't matter if he goes to Gaza. To be freed is the most important thing," said Zahra Sharawneh. "I hope the people of Gaza greet him and give him the care that he needs."

The Shin Bet said in a statement Sunday that Sharawneh could leave Gaza after the 10-year period "if he hasn't returned to terror activity."

Sharawneh was among four Palestinian prisoners who have been on a long-term hunger strike.

Another, Samer Issawi, has been on a hunger strike for over seven months. He began refusing food in August, when he was detained. He has taken nutrients in a hospital drip from time to time to stay alive, although his health condition is considered grave.

Issawi was sentenced to 26 years in prison for his involvement in a series of shooting attacks targeting Israeli police cars and students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Issawi was also freed as part of the 2011 prisoner exchange and was re-arrested for violating his release conditions.

The two other hunger strikers, Tarek Qaadan and Jafar Ezzeldeen, are in administrative detention, a system where prisoners can be held indefinitely without being charged, in three-month renewable periods. They began refusing food when they were detained over four months ago.

Israeli security officials suspect the two men are members of the violent Palestinian group Islamic Jihad and were overseeing militant activity, but neither has been charged.

About 4,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons for crimes ranging from throwing rocks at soldiers to deadly militant attacks. Palestinians see them as fighting for their national liberation, while Israelis widely regard them as terrorists.

West Bank protests demanding their release have repeatedly turned violent in recent weeks.

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Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid in Gaza City contributed to this report.

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