RAMALLAH, March 9 (JMCC) - Palestinian cartoonist Mohammed Saba'aneh was detained by Israel in February and is being held in administrative detention - essentially without being charged, reports PRI.

He is among tens arrested in recent weeks, including Palestinian parliamentarians and activists. They join some 4,800 prisoners in Israeli jails, over a hundred of them in administrative detention.

A handful are currently staging hunger strikes over their ongoing detention, and two men, Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawneh, are in dangerously poor health. The two were released in a prisoner swap for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, but were rearrested and their original sentences restored.

Saba’aneh was detained by Israeli authorities on February 16th, 2013 while crossing back into the West Bank from Jordan, where he had been on a four-day trip. Like many Palestinians in Israeli jails, Saba’aneh is being held without charge and cartoonists around the globe as well as journalist and human rights groups are demanding his release.

Saba’aneh is a cartoonist for Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority. He also works at the Arab American University in Jenin on the West Bank.

The plight of the prisoners has drawn protests in the West Bank, adding insecurity to an unstable situation.