Israel Releases 159 Palestinian Prisoners

BEITUNIA CHECKPOINT, West Bank – Israel released 159 Palestinian prisoners Monday as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership.

Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, the frontrunner in Jan. 9 presidential elections, welcomed the release, but said Israel must free those sentenced to lengthy terms. Some 7,000 Palestinians are held by Israel on security-related charges, and Abbas is under intense pressure at home to win their freedom.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian fugitive.

Dozens of prisoners arrived Monday morning at dropoff points in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, some waving Palestinian flags and flashing victory signs.

The prisoner release was part of a swap with Egypt. On Dec. 5, Egypt released Azzam Azzam, an Israeli who served eight years in an Egyptian jail on charges he was a spy. In exchange, Israel released six Egyptian students accused of planning attacks on Israel, and agreed to release Palestinian prisoners.

Israel has said the prisoner release was also meant as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership, but refuses to free Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis.

In a weekend campagin speech, Abbas demanded that Israel release all Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, a promising uprising leader.

“In principle we work for every prisoner to be released, but what we are looking for is the release of those who have spent many long years in jail,” Abbas told reporters shortly after the prisoners were freed.

Seventeen prisoners got off a bus at the Beitunia checkpoint near Ramallah. One prisoner waved a Palestinian flag as the group rushed off the bus to hug, kiss and shake hands with their waiting relatives.

Abdullah Hussein, 43, spent 11 months in the Ketziot military prison in southern Israel. He had five months left on his sentence for providing help to the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militant group linked to Fatah.

“We are not satisfied with this deal. My brothers gave me a message for Abu Mazen that he should make the prisoners a top priority,” Hussein said. Abbas is widely known as Abu Mazen.

In Gaza, Ahmad Shaqoura, 24, said he had only 23 days left on a two-year term. “It means nothing,” said Shaqoura, a Fatah member.

Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the prisoner release was a sign of Israel’s warming relations with Egypt, and the countries’ desire to coordinate a planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

The pullout from Gaza and four West Bank settlements, set for next year, received a boost Sunday when residents of one small Gaza community reached an agreement with the government to leave their homes voluntarily in March. Troops will begin evacuating settlements in July.

Settler leaders reacted in anger to Sunday’s announcement that the Peat Sadeh settlement – home to 20 families – and another five families had agreed to move to a nearby Israeli community.

Peat Sadeh was the first settlement to reach such an agreement with the government, but Yonatan Bassi, who handles the compensation arrangements for the government, said he was negotiating with other settler families and communities.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli troops shot and killed Wael Riyahi, an Al Aqsa fugitive, the army said. Riyahi tried to drive off in his car with the approach of troops who fired at the tires, the army said. Riyahi, armed with a handgun, then tried to run over the soldiers, who shot and killed him, according to the military.