Israel sent 29 Palestinian prisoners home to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, triggering celebrations that were interrupted by Israeli gunfire when a crowd surged towards a border crossing to greet the men.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to free the group in an attempt to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a US-sponsored conference on Palestinian statehood. An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers shot in the air towards a group of Palestinians approaching the Erez border terminal "and when they didn't stop, they fired at their legs".
A Reuters photographer was hit in the leg but his injury was not life-threatening. The crowd moved away and continued its celebrations. The release gave Abbas's Fatah movement a rare opportunity to celebrate since the routing of its fighters by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in June.
Hundreds of Fatah supporters joined family members to greet the prisoners at their homes in Gaza, waving flags and firing rifles in the air despite a ban by Hamas on guns and public gatherings. "Thank God we were released and we hope that all other prisoners from all other factions will be freed," said Abdel-Hadi Hassanein, a senior Fatah commander who was freed after serving half of his 14-year sentence for several shooting attacks against soldiers.
The prisoners had been due to be freed on Monday, together with 57 jailed Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank. The Gaza men were held in jail an extra day after Israeli President Shimon Peres delayed signing their pardons. It was unclear why Peres, a strong advocate of peacemaking with Abbas, had delayed issuing the pardons.
Commenting on the shooting at Erez, an Israeli military source said "everyone knows you are not allowed to run" towards a passageway leading to the terminal, in an area often under attack by Gaza militants.
"Just because someone is holding a camera doesn't guarantee he doesn't have a suicide belt," the source said. The prisoner release has stirred opposition in Israel. In a personal letter quoted in Israeli newspapers, Army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told Olmert he opposed letting the prisoners go as long as Gaza militants continued to hold Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was seized by gunmen who tunnelled into Israel in June 2006.
Olmert said he agreed to release only prisoners who did not have "blood on their hands", a reference to deadly attacks against Israelis. The prisoners were required to forswear violence in writing as a condition for their freedom. Olmert and Abbas are to meet in Jerusalem on Wednesday to try to narrow differences ahead of the Middle East conference planned for mid- to late November.
The release of prisoners is highly emotive for Palestinians, who regard their nearly 11,000 brethren held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation. One of the inmates due to be released to the West Bank has been kept at a holding centre for additional vetting, the Prisons Service spokesman said.
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