[Reuters/Washington Post] Yehuda Peretz - Israel began releasing 87 jailed Palestinians on Monday, members of Abbas' Fatah or smaller secular factions, in a move aimed at strengthening Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said last week that only prisoners "without blood on their hands" - a reference to deadly attacks against the Jewish state - and willing to sign a document renouncing violence would be freed. The last such gesture by Israel was on July 20, when some 250 prisoners, most of them from Fatah, went free. Twenty-nine of the 87 prisoners on Monday's release roster come from Gaza and the others from the West Bank.
2007-10-01 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive