A majority of Israelis are opposed to the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being mulled by Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a poll in the Maariv newspaper said on Wednesday.
The poll found that 70 percent of Israeli Jews oppose the release of prisoners, envisioned as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas ahead of a peace meeting expected later this year in the United States.
Only 22 percent approved of the release, with 8 percent undecided. The poll was conducted by the Teleseker Institute among 500 people representative of the adult Jewish population of Israel, and had a margin of error of 4.4 percent.