An Israeli soldier, jailed for refusing to perform mandatory reserve service, went on a hunger strike on Sunday, joining the Palestinian prisoners in the Jewish country fasting to protest their detaining conditions.

Yaniv Mazor, a 31-year-old Israeli, was sentenced to imprisonment last week after deciding not to continue the mandatory reserve service in protest against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Mazor started the hunger strike in support of the Palestinian prisoners' "battle of the empty stomachs," which decries Israel's policy of administrative detention, under which Palestinians can be held in jail for years without a trial.

Last month, some 1,600 fasting Palestinians in Israeli jails agreed to end an almost month-long hunger strike, which threatened to break the fragile peace in the West Bank, as Israel feared that the death of any prisoner could spark violence in the region.

Mazor's hunger strike aims to protest the administrative detention of Mahmoud Sarsak, a former soccer player, who has been hunger striking for 90 days, and Akram Rikhawi, who has not eaten anything for 66 days.

"I decided to start a hunger strike in solidarity (with the Palestinians), and in order to raise awareness of the issue of administrative detention, and not to prompt my own release," Mazor told the Ha'aretz daily.