Israel was making preparations on Sunday to free 199 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmud Abbas ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, prison authorities said. "In accordance with the government decision, the prisoner release will be carried out tomorrow (Monday) at 9:30 am (0630 GMT)," the Israeli Prison Service said in a statement.
"The prisoners underwent medical examination, they were interviewed by Red Cross representatives and they will be transferred tomorrow to the Beituniya checkpoint" near the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.
Palestinians eagerly awaited the release, hoping that the freeing of two long-serving inmates convicted of involvement in deadly attacks against Israelis signalled an easing of Israel's release criteria.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the latest release of prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Abbas in the context of US-backed peace talks formally relaunched in November at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland. After their release, the prisoners will be taken to Abbas's presidential compound for an official celebration, Ashraf al-Ajrami, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, told reporters in Ramallah.
"Our reception of the prisoners tomorrow will be like a national wedding," he said. Those due to be released include two of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, for whom Israel has made a rare exception to its policy of not freeing those implicated in deadly attacks on its citizens.
Said al-Attaba, 56, has been serving a life sentence since 1977 for killing an Israeli woman, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, 51, known as "Abu Ali Yatta," has been behind bars since 1979 for killing an Israeli student.
Abu Ali, a member of Abbas's Fatah party, was elected to parliament in 2006. Ajrami said the decision to release the two men was a "small step opening the door to bigger ones" and a sign that Israel was easing its criteria for releasing some of the more than 10,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. "Releasing these kinds of prisoners indicates that the criteria Israel used in the past will not endure. This clears the way for other prisoners," he said.
The release will coincide with the arrival of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her 18th visit to the region in two years aimed at brokering a Middle East peace agreement by 2009. The two sides have made little tangible progress on resolving the core issues of the conflict, including final borders and the status of Jerusalem, and the process has been marred by violence and Israeli settlement expansion.
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