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Israel frees jailed Palestinians to boost Abbas

01 Oct 2007 16:41:53 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Palestinian prisoners wait to be released from Ketziot prison, southern Israel, October 1, 2007. Israel releases 87 jailed Palestinians on Monday in a bid to shore up President Mahmoud Abbas against rival Hamas Islamists and ahead of a U.S.-sponsored conference on Palestinian statehood.
REUTERS/RONEN ZVULUN

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(Updates with plan to release prisoners on Tuesday)

By Mohammed Assadi

BEITUNYA, West Bank, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Israel sent 57 jailed Palestinians home to the West Bank on Monday to try to bolster Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, but the release of 29 other prisoners who live in Hamas-controlled Gaza was delayed.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said the prisoners from Gaza would be released on Tuesday, one day later than planned. A statement said Israeli President Shimon Peres signed all of the Gaza pardons after an unexplained delay.

Olmert had promised to include Gaza residents in the release as part of his confidence-building moves with Abbas ahead of a U.S.-proposed Middle East conference on Palestinian statehood, expected to convene in mid-November.

A spokesman for the Israel Prisons Service blamed the delay on "technical problems" that did not originate with the agency.

Peres's signature was not required for the release of West Bank-based prisoners because the area is under military occupation and the men were freed in accordance with an order signed by an Israeli general.

After a delay of several hours on Monday, 57 prisoners from the occupied West Bank were taken to the Palestinian government compound in the city of Ramallah, where they received an emotional welcome from relatives and supporters.

"We are happy to see our sons freed, but we hope that prisoners with longer sentences will be freed as well," said Mahmoud Ali, one of the Palestinians waiting for the men in the West Bank.

One more West Bank inmate due for release was kept at a holding centre for additional vetting, the Prisons Service said.

All 87 West Bank and Gaza residents on the release roster were members of Abbas's Fatah or smaller secular factions who had been jailed for attacks that did not kill Israelis. Olmert said last week they would have to forswear violence in writing.

EMOTIVE ISSUE

The release of prisoners is highly emotive for Palestinians, who see their nearly 11,000 brethren held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation. Many Israelis fear that such amnesties encourage Palestinian militants to strike again.

"I am very upset. I was happy when I came here and then they told us it was not happening," said Abu Rami, waiting for his son at a border crossing in the Gaza Strip, territory that Hamas Islamists seized control of in June.

Abbas's office had welcomed Israel's decision to release prisoners but said more needed to be done. The last such gesture by Israel was on July 20, when about 250 prisoners, most of them from Fatah, were freed.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Israel wanted only to "bolster internal Palestinian divisions and brighten the image of the occupation in world public opinion".

Palestinians are divided on whether the conference will bring them closer to statehood. Olmert wants it to produce a broad-brush joint statement, while Abbas seeks an explicit "framework" agreement with a timeline for implementation.

It is unclear to what extent Olmert is prepared to meet Abbas's call to tackle "final status" issues key to establishing a Palestinian state: border-setting, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees.

"These issues have been discussed (in the past) ... and I think the difference today is that these issues require decisions, and decisions are made by decision-makers," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Israel's Army Radio. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Avida Landau in Jerusalem)

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Last updated:Mon Oct 1 16:42:20 2007