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Jailed Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah began a hunger strike at the start of the month after his mother was hospitalised more than 150 days into her own hunger strike, his family said on Friday.

Abdel-Fattah began refusing food at the Wadi al-Natroun prison "on Saturday, March 1 after hearing news that his mother had been hospitalised" in London, where she has been on hunger strike to put pressure on the British government to secure his release.

Laila Soueif, 68, eased her hunger strike on Wednesday and agreed to consume 300 calories a day in liquids, after doctors warned her blood sugar and blood pressure had dropped to dangerously low levels.

Soueif said she had been given "hope" after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer phoned Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last week to press for her son's release.

Abdel-Fattah was arrested in 2019 and later sentenced to five years in prison for "spreading false news" after sharing a Facebook post about alleged torture in Egyptian jails.

Soueif launched her hunger strike in September last year, when her son's sentence was meant to be completed.

Authorities told the family they had decided not to count his two years in pre-trial detention - which normally counts towards jail sentences in Egypt.

Abdel-Fattah was last on hunger strike in 2022, when he survived on 100 calories a day for seven months, making headlines during a UN climate summit hosted by Egypt.

"My family is devastated that Alaa is now on hunger strike in prison (where) he gets very limited information while locked away," Abdel-Fattah's sister Sanaa Seif said in a statement.

"But I understand how desperate he feels in there, and the emotional toll he must feel while our mother is starving herself to try to get him out."

Egypt's most prominent political prisoner has spent most of the past decade behind bars.

Human rights groups have called on Sisi to pardon him.

In 2022, Sisi relaunched a presidential pardons committee which has released a number of high-profile political prisoners, including Abdel-Fattah's lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer.

The government has since freed hundreds of remand prisoners.

It rejects human rights group estimates that tens of thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars.