Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday as part of US-brokered peace efforts, but said it was pressing on with plans to build more homes for Jewish settlers, in an apparent move to appease hard-liners. The inmates, who were convicted of killing Israelis, basked in a heroes' welcome from hundreds of relatives and well-wishers in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "Our heroes are coming home, long live the prisoners," crowds chanted outside the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Issa Abed Rabbo, convicted of murdering two Israeli hikers in 1984, was carried through the alleys of the Biblical town of Bethlehem on the shoulders of cheering Palestinians as fireworks went off and patriotic songs blared. "My feeling is that of a commander returning from battle, carrying a banner of victory and freedom," Abed Rabbo said, his outstretched fingers forming a triumphant V.
The inmates, jailed before or just after the first Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals were signed 20 years ago, were released as part of a limited amnesty demanded by the Palestinians to revive long-stalled statehood negotiations. The second prisoner release since peace talks resumed in July after a three-year break opened fissures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist government. A pro-settler coalition partner, the Jewish Home party, and members of his own Likud, called on the leader to cancel the amnesty. Israel's Interior Ministry announced it would proceed with a plan for 1,500 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.