Israeli troops have arrested four members of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas in the occupied West Bank, officials say.

Palestinian security sources and officials said Israeli soldiers arrested four Hamas members, including a lawmaker, on Tuesday, AFP reported.

Hamas lawmaker Nasser Abdel Jawwad was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday in the town of Salfit, around 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of Nablus, the officials said.

Israeli troops also arrested three other Hamas members in Nablus itself.

The three other detainees are Nawaf Amer, a journalist for the al-Quds television channel, Fuad Khofash, director of the Ahrar center for prisoners and human rights, and Firas Jarrar, a former prisoner.

The arrest of the Salfit lawmaker brings to 14 the number of Hamas parliamentarians detained by Israeli troops over the past eight months.

On Monday, Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails began a hunger strike against the solitary confinement of seven inmates, said Issa Qaraqa, the Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs.

Some 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli jails. Many of them are held without charges, leaving several families with no breadwinner.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to make the conditions tougher for Palestinian prisoners.

"I have decided to change Israel’s treatment of terrorists sitting in prison," Netanyahu said.

"We will give them all that they deserve according to international law but nothing beyond that," he added.

The prisoners held in Israeli detention camps are continuously subject to lengthy solitary confinements, sudden night raids and torture.

The Israeli prison administration is said to be using the policy of humiliation, pressure and punishment under the guise of security in its jails. It also deprives Palestinian political detainees of the simple right of bathing, access to clean clothes and family visits.

(Press TV)