Israel approves release of 200 Palestinian prisoners to PA

Hamas furious with Israeli 'gesture' to Fatah

By ICEJ News

18 Aug 2008

The Israeli cabinet voted on Sunday to free around 200 Palestinian prisoners, mainly from Fatah, as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a move that has riled the rival Hamas faction.

The cabinet’s decision comes in response to appeals from Abbas and before US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice arrives in the region at the end of the month.

"This is a gesture to Abu Mazen [Abbas] and the Palestinian people for the upcoming month of Ramadan," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told his cabinet. The prisoner release is projected to “strengthen the peace process and moderate Palestinians and to demonstrate clearly that the path of moderation and the path of negotiations is the path that can deliver results,” according to Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev.

A ministerial committee will meet on Monday to confirm which prisoners are to be freed. The committee has been given some leeway to go beyond current guidlines by releasing two prisoners with “blood on their hands” and others who have been detained for less than two-thirds of their prison term. The designated 200 prisoners will probably be freed by the end of August, said Regev.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni voted in favor of the release, while her main rival in the current Kadima primary, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, voted against it.

Most cabinet members felt that Israel has been sending the wrong message lately in holding negotiations with Hizbullah and Hamas over releasing Palestinian prisoners in return for freeing abducted Israeli soldiers.

“When Israel releases prisoners only to groups that exert force, it sends out the message that it gives in to pressure and that the use of violence and kidnapping are [effective] ways of acting against Israel,” said Livni, adding that releasing prisoners to a negotating partner like the PA shows that peace talks are the right path.

But Opposition MKs criticized the move as being made by a lameduck government that is getting nothing in return. “Instead of adopting a resolute stance against terrorism, the Kadima-Labor government continues to release hundreds of prisoners in return for nothing… [Likud] will “replace weakness with an uncompromising aggressive policy toward terrorism,” said likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu.

The cabinet’s decision “crushes the public’s faith that murderers and terrorists will receive their due punishment, and will harm Israeli citizens’ security and the efforts to release Gilad Schalit,” added Likud faction chair MK Gideon Sa’ar.

Meantime, PA officials applauded Israel’s gesture but added that more prisoners should be freed. "This is a positive step…. But we are continuing to insist that Israel must release all the Palestinian prisoners from its jails. This is the only way to move forward with the peace process," said a top PA official in Ramallah.

Hamas was furious with the cabinet’s decision, however, and sees it as an effort to intensify the internal Palestinian divisions by backing one group over the other.

"Our people want to see all the prisoners released, and not only those belonging to Fatah," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, whose group is working through Egyptian mediators to reach a deal that would return kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in exchnage for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from all factions, reported The Jerusalem Post.

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