The international rights watchdog Amnesty International has called on Israel to immediately release a Palestinian writer who has been jailed without charges or trial.

Israeli forces arrested 66-year-old Ahmad Qatamesh on May 14 during house raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Last week, he was placed under a three-month period of administrative detention, a practice in which Israel imprisons Palestinians without charge or trial, often based on "secret evidence". An Israeli military court has yet to approve that order.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, called Qatamesh a "prisoner of conscience".

The group said he was "detained solely due to his non-violent political activities and writing and to deter activism by other Palestinians".

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