RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- A member of the Fatah central committee spoke on behalf of the president Tuesday saying the prisoners' cause is shared by Mahmoud Abbas and the Ramallah-based leadership.

Jamal Muhsein said the prisoners are the PA's "top priority."

Speaking outside a sit-in tent in Al-Bireh, where thousands demonstrated Tuesday, Muhsein said the prisoners issue would be taken to the Arab League as well as the UN.

The official said Israel had a historic opportunity to be a part of the region, or the region would send it to the "dustbin of history" if it continues its aggressive policies toward Palestinian rights.

He said the prisoners on hunger strike would eventually succeed.

The governor of Ramallah, Leila Ghannam, also spoke and said that achieving peace and stability was useless without freeing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Ghannam said the prisoners strike came to urge the international community to stop Israeli violations of their rights. She called on the world to put an end to their suffering.

Salam Fayyad, the premier in Ramallah, also visited hunger-strikers in the sit-in tent and stressed the necessity of intervention by the international community to release the prisoners.

He stressed that several prisoners are in critical condition.