Jerusalem - Israel's cabinet voted Sunday to release 250
Palestinian prisoners from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah
organization, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian leader who is
locked in political battle with the rival Hamas movement.
Late Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met in Jerusalem
with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyed, head of Abbas'
emergency government. This was the first meeting between the two
since the moderate Fayyad was appointed prime minister following the
Hamas takeover of Gaza last month.
Fayyad asked Livni to work to improve the Palestinians' situation
and increase freedom of movement, local media reported. The two also
discussed ways to advance the peace process by involving more Arab
states.
An Israeli government spokesperson said that representatives of
the Arab League, from Jordan and Egypt, are expected to arrive soon
in Israel to discuss the Arab peace initiative, relaunched in March
at the last Arab summit.
The move calls for complete Arab recognition of Israel in return
for a withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, and a solution to
the Palestinian refugee problem.
This would be the first official Arab League visit to the Jewish
state.
The actual list of prisoners to be released following the
government decision will be brought to a cabinet committee for
approval at a later date, but reports Sunday in Israel said that
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had vetoed the first selections presented
to him by the Shin Bet internal security organization.
The Shin Bet list apparently included prisoners who were nearing
release. Olmert, reports said, thought this would not be an
appropriate gesture and demanded that prisoners whose release dates
were further in the future be considered.
In accordance with Israeli policy, the final list will not include
'prisoners with blood on their hands' - Israel parlance for prisoners
jailed after killing Israelis.
A government communique said only prisoners who served more than
two-thirds of their sentence would be released, and provisions would
be made for humanitarian cases.
Riad Maliki, minister of information in Abbas's emergency
government in Ramallah, welcomed the move.
'Despite the fact that we didn't have a role to play in
determining the list of the people to be released, we believe any
prisoner freed from Israeli prison is an achievement,' he said.
Maliki said that 'this is not enough,' noting that more than
10,000 Palestinians remained imprisoned in Israel.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri slammed the decision, saying it
would 'divide' the Palestinians because the Israelis were only
releasing prisoners from 'certain groups,' a reference to Fatah.
Six Israeli ministers voted against the release, which would be
the first since February 2005, when 500 prisoners were freed just
after Abbas was elected president.
The cabinet vote follows a pledge by Olmert two weeks ago at a
four-way Israeli-Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian summit, where he said
he would free the prisoners in order to strengthen Abbas, who is
locked in political battle with the Hamas movement.
Israel has said it would try to boost Abbas' standing with his own
electorate, after the president dismissed a Hamas-led government
following the Islamic movement's violent takeover last month of the
Gaza Strip.
Olmert indicated that Israel would cooperate with the emergency
government Abbas formed to replace the Hamas-led cabinet.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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