Israel freed more than 250 Palestinian prisoners on Friday as
part of a US-backed deal to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas after Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip last
month.
The prisoners, mostly members of Abbas' secular Fatah faction,
arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah where they were greeted
by Abbas and reunited with family members.
"You cannot imagine how happy we are that you came back to us,"
Abbas told a crowd of about 3,000 at the presidential compound.
"But our happiness is missing something because we want all 11,000
prisoners to return to their families."
On Thursday, the Quartet of international powers mediating in
the Middle East reaffirmed its support for Abbas and for
US-sponsored talks to try to revive a peace process that all but
died after Hamas won parliamentary elections last year, prompting
crippling economic sanctions on the Palestinians.
At Ramallah, many of the prisoners released waved Palestinian
flags as they stepped off buses at the end of their journey from
the Kitsiyot prison in southern Israel.
"I'm very happy, it's a great day for me," said 18-year-old
Shadi Barawshi, released two years into a five-year sentence. His
tearful mother said: "I can't believe he's standing in front of me
now."
Muhannad Jaradat, who spent 18 years in jail, hugged his mother
and said: "I will not leave you, mother."
Hamas, shunned by Israel and Western powers for refusing to
renounce violence against the Jewish state, routed Fatah forces in
Gaza last month, prompting Abbas to dismiss the government it led
and to install a new administration in the larger West Bank.
The schism between the two Palestinian territories has left
hopes for establishing a state in disarray. However, eagerness in
the West to marginalize Hamas has secured an end to sanctions on
Abbas's new government as well as a number of concessions from
Israel.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas in Gaza who still calls
himself prime minister, told worshippers after weekly prayers: "We
are happy at the release of any Palestinian prisoner.
"But we warn against the use of these issues as political bribes
and traps on the road of Israeli good intentions."
Criticized by some in Israel for releasing militants, Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert has spelled out that freeing prisoners who do
not have "blood on their hands" is a goodwill gesture.
Besides the release of prisoners, Israel has agreed to stop
hunting dozens of militants loyal mainly to Fatah groups, in return
for promises that they return to civilian life.
Hamas, on the other hand, remains embargoed, isolated and under
occasional assault from Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip.
(China Daily via agencies July 21, 2007)
