Israel to Free Palestinians as 'Gesture' for Talks
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Israel announced on Saturday it will release some Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture", after the two sides agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations frozen for three years.
Some of those to be released had been held in prisons for decades, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said.
His announcement came hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had agreed to meet to pave the way for a resumption of direct peace talks.
The last round of direct talks broke down in 2010 over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Steinitz said his government would engage in the staggered release of a "limited number" of prisoners, some of whom he defined as "heavyweights", who have been in jail for up to 30 years.
"There will definitely be a certain gesture here", he said without noting how many prisoners were to be freed.
According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, at least 4,713 Palestinians are imprisoned in the Jewish state.
Their release is one of the Palestinians' key demands for resuming peace talks, particularly the 107 prisoners arrested prior to 1993, when the Oslo peace accords were signed.
An Israeli official said no prisoners would be released before direct talks begin and the process would then be dependent on the Palestinians proving they are "really serious and not playing games".
"It won't happen tomorrow and not next week," the official told Agence France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity. He could give no indication of the number of prisoners involved.
He said the releases, once they begin, would take place in stages and include "pre-Oslo prisoners, prisoners set to be released anyway, and those the Palestinians 'forgot' during the Oslo accords".
Steinitz said Israel would not compromise "diplomatic issues", and that there was no agreement on a settlement construction freeze or on accepting the borders that existed prior to 1967 Six-Day war as the basis for talks, as the Palestinians demand.
He said for their part the Palestinians had committed to "negotiate seriously" for "at least nine months," during which they would refrain from action at the United Nation and other international institutions.
Kerry gave away very little detail of the agreement, which came after four days of consultations with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Just minutes before boarding a plane to fly home from Jordan, Kerry said both sides had reached "an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations".
"This is a significant and welcome step forward," he added, having doggedly pushed the two sides to agree to resume talks in six intense trips to the region since becoming secretary of state in February.
A State Department official said Kerry had wrenched a commitment from both sides "on the core elements that will allow direct talks to begin".
The Israelis and Palestinians remain far apart on final status issues including the borders of a future Palestinian state, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the fate of Jerusalem which both want as their capital.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has also repeatedly called for a freeze to Israeli settlement building and a prisoner release.
According to a Palestinian official, "The ball is now in Israel's court. Kerry has proposed the bases for a resumption of negotiations and asked (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu to respond favorably to one of them."
"The bases are the release of Palestinians jailed before the Oslo accords, minors, the sick or the elderly," he said on condition of anonymity. "And that Israel recognize the 1967 (border) lines as a reference point, or a halt to settlement building."
The official said Netanyahu had agreed to hold a special cabinet session to draw up Israel's response to Kerry's proposals.
"If Israel accepts them, negotiations will resume."
The Islamist Hamas movement which runs the Gaza Strip rejected a return to talks, saying Abbas had no legitimate right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people.
And the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine warned that "a return to talks outside the framework of the United Nations and its resolutions would be political suicide".
20 July 2013, 13:21
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Will they be rearrested when (not if) Abu Mazen or his representative walks out of the talks.
Israel should only release the prisoners one a day, and only whilst the talks are progressing.
20 July 2013, 13:55
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"He said some of those to be freed have been in Israeli jails for up to 30 years."
'bout time they get to see their grandsons and granddaughters, if they weren't annihilated by the Israelis, that is. I think, more than anything, this only goes to further escalate the elucidation of Israeli atrocities.
20 July 2013, 17:08
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-endless- Am I to understand that there are no criminals in jails in the Arab World who have been there for over 30 years? There are hundreds if not thousands of them, and even in Western Europe and the US there are plenty, so why make out that Israel should be different.
20 July 2013, 19:26
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That most certainly is not what you are to understand, phillipo. What you are to understand is the unlawful, unpalatable affront to human life and dignity the Israelis have shown palestinians only too clearly. Their cultural aspects in regards to Palestinians and their right to land is one of denigration and debasement. They have violated numerous international laws regarding human rights and the rights of children. They've detained hundreds of thousands of palestinian men, women, and children, and hundreds -- indefinitely -- without any due trial or any explanation even.
20 July 2013, 19:26
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Israel has every right to imprison those who pose a threat to the lives of citizens, but I cannot even theoretically see how children throwing rocks can be labeled terrorism. Do you think they still know what the word means anymore? Do you not doubt that perhaps they've become the monsters they themselves feared in the past? Physical, psychological torture, indefinite detention with no charge, expanding settlements into foreign land, bulldozing dozens of hundreds of homes and resettling thousands. What's more -- they see their devaluation of human life as justified, and shamelessly pat themselves on the back in agreement with one another ( e.g. "Rachel Corrie pancakes” etc. ). The abuse is seldom matched by other countries in such magnitude is all.
21 July 2013, 06:47
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endless: I don't know details of "children throwing rocks" who are imprisoned. How many? what term? how old are the children? In any event, the prisoners discussed here are killers of civilians. Any government would imprison them for lengthy periods. Rachel Corrie layed down in front of a tractor. Her death was unintentional, in contrast to the over 30 killed in Iraq today.
