Reuters
Israel Begins Freeing 160 Palestinian Prisoners
Date: Tue, Sep 07, 2004
By Matt Spetalnick
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel began freeing 161 Palestinian prisoners from its jails Tuesday in the largest mass release in more than seven months, Israeli security sources said.
The Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) dismissed the move as meaningless, and Israeli officials said it was meant not as a goodwill gesture but to ease conditions in prisons overflowing with Palestinians rounded up during nearly four years of conflict.
The release came less than a week after Palestinian prisoners halted an 18-day hunger strike in Israeli jails. It was not known whether any of those released had been among the 3,000 inmates who took part in the strike at its peak.
Israel planned to release 137 Palestinians Tuesday and another 24 Wednesday, all nearing the end of their jail terms and most convicted of minor offenses such as stone-throwing or illegal entry into the Jewish state, security sources said.
Palestinians, who regard the prisoners as heroes of their nationalist cause, demand amnesty for all of the detainees.
"They arrest Palestinians every day, at checkpoints, inside cities and villages, everywhere," Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Hisham Abdel-Razik told Reuters. "It would only take them minutes to arrest the same number (they are freeing)."
The security sources said none of the freed detainees had been involved in attacks on Israelis. "These are prisoners without blood on their hands," a military source said.
Many of Israel's 7,000 Palestinian prisoners were arrested for alleged militant activity and have been held in "administrative detention" without charge or trial -- conditions that have drawn censure from international human rights groups.
BIGGEST RELEASE IN MONTHS
Tuesday's release was the biggest since January, when Israel freed 400 Palestinian inmates as part of a prisoner exchange deal with the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah.
Those who left Israeli jails Tuesday were met with none of the jubilation that greeted Palestinians freed in the Hizbollah deal and in prisoner releases last year that Israel had billed as gestures to bolster U.S.-backed peace efforts.
Most trickled in ones and twos across checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank and were lucky if family members had been given advance notice to meet them, witnesses said.
The Haaretz newspaper quoted military sources saying Israel's defense establishment was increasingly worried by prison overcrowding.
More than 2,500 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank this year, prompting security commanders to order forces to carry out only "urgent" arrests, the daily reported.
The hunger strike that came to an end Thursday had added to the strain on Israel's prison system.
Palestinian officials said Israel had met their demands, which included an end to strip searches, allowing more frequent family visits, improved sanitation and access to public phones.
Israeli officials denied making any concessions and dismissed the strike as a ploy by prisoners to secure easier communication with militant groups they belonged to. (Additional reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)
SOURCE
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