MIDDLE EAST: Israel releases 198 Palestinian prisoners in a bid to bolster Palestinian President Abbas and his government

Record ID: 562458

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Israel releases 198 Palestinian prisoners in a bid to bolster Palestinian President Abbas and his government
  • Date: 25th August 2008
  • Summary: (BN08) BEITUNYA CHECKPOINT BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (AUGUST 25, 2008) (REUTERS) PRISONER BEING RELEASED BY ISRAEL KNEELING AND KISSING GROUND AS HE WALKS FROM ONE BUS TO ANOTHER PALESTINIAN PRISONER WAVING MORE OF PRISONERS BEING RELEASED WAVING ONE OF LONGEST SERVING PALESTINIAN PRISONERS, 57-YEARS OLD SAID AL-ATABEH BEING ESCORTED BY OFFICIALS, WAVING
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA6BMBED78SDN2JEJ2P6GOL4JMY
  • Story Text: Israel releases 198 Palestinian prisoners in a bid to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his government. The released prisoners are greeted by cheering crowds, and a celebration at the Palestinian presidential compound. In Gaza, a Hamas spokesman says his group will continue their "resistance," until all Palestinian prisoners are set free.
    Israel freed 198 Palestinian prisoners to a hero's welcome in the West Bank on Monday (August 25), saying it hoped the release would bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his peace efforts.
    "Today we will be releasing some 200 Palestinian prisoners in a confidence building measure to strengthen peace with the Palestinian people, to strengthen moderate forces amongst the Palestinians. Ultimately, we want an historic reconciliation with the Palestinians, and we understand that gestures like the one happening today will help further and better a more positive atmosphere more conducive to negotiations," said spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mark Regev.
    The release got under way just hours before the planned arrival in Israel of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will try to spur progress towards a peace deal that Washington says it still aims to achieve by year's end.
    Israel hopes the release will raise popular support for Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists last year, and show Palestinians that dialogue can achieve results.
    Before boarding the buses, several of the prisoners knelt on the ground and touched their heads to the pavement in a gesture of thanksgiving.
    Wearing shirts emblazoned with pictures of Abbas and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, some of the released prisoners flashed V-for-Victory signs as they leaned out of windows of buses that took them from Ofer prison to the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
    Cheering crowds waved Palestinian flags and danced in the street to welcome the 194 men and four women, who were received at a ceremony at the Muqata, or Palestinian Authority compound, in Ramallah.
    The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody, Said al-Atabeh, 57, of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), was among those released.
    Atabeh was arrested in 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of involvement in bombings that killed an Israeli woman and wounded dozens of people.
    Some 11,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons and securing their release is a highly emotive issue in Palestinian society.
    "My brothers, there is no doubt that we call for peace. There is no doubt that we call for peace and we are working to fullfil our Palestinian national interests, but we also say that there will not be a peace process without releasing all the Palestinian prisoners," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said to a cheering crowd at his headquarters in Ramallah.
    In Nablus, al-Atabeh's family and friends gathered to watch the live broadcast of the release of al-Atabeh.
    With tears in her eyes, his mother, Um Radi Al-Atabeh applauded as she saw her son wave at the crowd and make victory signs.
    "I felt happy when I heard the news on the radio and the television...I was born again, it rescued me and took me out from the well," she said from her home in the West Bank city where family and friends awaited his return.
    In Gaza City, a few dozen relatives gathered to call of Israel to free their relatives imprisoned in the Jewish state.
    The Islamist group's spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called on Israel to release the remaining Palestinians prisoners and said Hamas would continue its resistance until all the prisoners were set free.
    "They are right to be liberate to be free as any other people and we are Hamas we will continue our resistance and type of resistance in order to let this occupation to be free all of our Palestinian detainees from their jails," Barhoum said.
    Initially 199 prisoners had been slated to go free. But one was kept at the jail over a separate criminal charge, Israeli Prison Services spokesman Yaron Zamir said.
    Several Israeli cabinet ministers had opposed freeing Palestinians "with blood on their hands", an Israeli term for attacks that caused Israeli casualties, but a ministerial committee approved the list a week ago.
    About half of the prisoners on a release list published by Israel were to have completed their sentences next year, but 43 had at least five more years to serve.
    Offences listed next to prisoners' names ranged from stone-throwing to shooting attacks.
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