Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has moved to allow force-feeding of Palestinian hunger strikers, setting off a fiery defiance from activists and doctors’ associations who contend that doing so tantamount to tortu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has moved to allow force-feeding of Palestinian hunger strikers, setting off a fiery defiance from activists and doctors’ associations who contend that doing so tantamount to torturing prisoners who have spent weeks protesting detention without trial.

The Zionist parliament has given initial approval to the law that would allow a judge to okay force-feeding if an inmate’s life is perceived to be in danger, drawing defiance from activists who said it would not deter the inmates.

Human rights activists and even Israeli doctors said the practice amounts to torture.

The practice of forcing feeding hunger strikers -- which could potentially impact the 300 prisoners who Palestinian groups say have been hunger striking since April 23 -- is tantamount to torture, according to Amany Dayif, the director of prisoners and detainees at Physicians for Human Rights.

"The Israeli Ministry of Health is trying to advance the bill despite its position as a body which should be protecting the physicians from these kinds of proceedings," she said. “But to the contrary, it uses them for political and security reasons in order to break the prisoners' will.”

Some 120 Palestinians held by Israel began refusing food on April 24 in protest at their detention without trial. Since then the number has risen closer to 300. Israel's Prisons Service say 70 have been hospitalized.

Qadoura Fares, chairman of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which advocates on behalf of Palestinians in Israeli custody, said the strike would continue and that the proposed law "will not break the will of prisoners".

He said "forced feeding could kill prisoners", citing the deaths in 1980 of two Palestinian prisoners whom he said died in an attempt to force-feed them during a hunger strike.

The measure, which is also opposed by the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) that represents most Israeli doctors, is backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

The IMA says "forced medical treatment, including force-feeding is forbidden", and that implementing such a measure would violated internationally accepted medical ethics.