"WASHINGTON -- The US military said yesterday that a long-running hunger strike among detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison underwent a very significant increase" starting on Christmas Day, more than doubling the number of prisoners who are protesting their indefinite detention without trial by refusing to eat. A bloc of 46 prisoners began refusing meals on Dec. 25, the military said, bringing the total number of participants in the hunger strike to 84. A spokesman at the base said yesterday that 32 of the longer-term strikers have been hospitalized and are being force-fed through nasal tubes and the rest are under close medical observation. The numbers had more or less stayed at the same levels -- in the mid to high 30s -- for several weeks," said Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, a spokesman for the prison. Then we had this very significant increase in the number of hunger strikers all of a sudden.""