CAIRO: 65 Egyptian prisoners in Israeli jails began a open-ended hunger strike, according to a report by the Israeli Yedioth Ahronot, quoted by Egypt's state-owned news agency MENA on Tuesday. The Israeli Prisons Authority also on announced Tuesday that three Egyptian detainees began a hunger strike to demand their release. The 65 Egyptians are held in various prisons in the Negev Desert in the South of Israel, according to statements by Ibrahim El-Darawi, head of the Palestinian Studies Center in Cairo. He said that the prisoners protested their exclusion from the prisoner swap deal for Ilan Grapel, the Israeli-American, who was detained in Egypt in June 2011 on charges of espionage, before he was released in exchanged for 25 Egyptian prisoners in October.