Israel starts releasing 500 Palestinian prisoners

The first group of Palestinian prisoners slated for release from Israeli jails began boarding buses early Monday, en route to checkpoints in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel plans to release 500 prisoners as a goodwill gesture toward Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The government approved the release of the prisoners earlier this month as an act of goodwill toward Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. All of the released prisoners were required to sign a document stating they would not engage in terror, Army Radio said. According to military officials, by midday all 500 were expected to have been delivered to drop-off points on the edges of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The first group of prisoners left the Ketziot prison Monday morning on their way to the Salem checkpoint outside the West Bank town of Jenin. Relatively senior IDF officers were commanding the checkpoints to make sure the release proceeds smoothly. Israel plans to release an additional 400 prisoners within the next three months. A joint Israeli-Palestinian ministerial committee will decide which prisoners will be released in the second round. On Sunday, 16 Palestinians, mainly administrative detainees who were deported to the Gaza Strip, were allowed to return to the West Bank with 38 members of their families. The deportees arrived by bus to Bitunia, southwest of Ramallah, Sunday night after an entire day of check-ups in the Gaza Strip. Israel and the PA are reportedly close to reaching an agreement on transferring Tul Karm to the PA. Another group of 39 deportees to the Gaza Strip and overseas, who were holed up in the Church of the Nativity, have been granted permission to return to the West Bank. Only 200 have served two-thirds of sentence Just 200 of the 500 Palestinian prisoners to be released Monday under agreements with the Palestinian Authority have served two-thirds of their sentences, the High Court of Justice heard on Sunday during a debate on a petition filed against the release by the Almagor organization of terror victims. The court rejected the petition. The state’s representative, attorney Dani Horin, told the court that 120 of the prisoners slated to be released were security detainees to whom the criterion of time served did not apply, while another 180 prisoners had yet to serve two-thirds of their sentences. The state also told the court that prisoners released in previous deals are not among the 500 to be released today, and that every prisoner who is released will be required to sign a statement in which he will undertake not to play any part in future terror activities. „The release of the prisoners constitutes part of a comprehensive move in which the government agreed to release Palestinian prisoners so as to bolster the PA and its ability to act against the terror organizations,” Horin said. „Therefore, the state believes that the release of the prisoners could prevent future terror attacks and put an end to the cycle of violence.” Horin’s statements evoked a response from Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who said that the release of terrorists did not help to combat terror, but merely shows that the PA has made achievements. The representative for the petitioners, attorney Naftali Wertzberger, argued that the release „undermines the rule of law,” adding that „freeing prisoners who have not served even half of their sentences will show that justice hasn’t been done.” BPI-info