JERUSALEM: Most of those released are from Fatah

Israel released 255 Palestinian prisoners on Friday in a gesture meant to support the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who said that more prisoners would soon be released.

The gesture came out of Abbas's last meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, who also agreed to amnesty for 178 members of Fatah's Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades if they gave up their weapons and pledged to stop attacking Israel.

Both moves are supposed to help Abbas and his Fatah faction in their struggle with the Islamic movement Hamas, which routed Fatah and took control of Gaza in June. Since then, Abbas fired the Hamas-led government and named a new cabinet led by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, an independent. Together, with the help of Western aid, they are trying to create a better life for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in contrast to the situation in Gaza, where Hamas is isolated and the main crossings for goods and people to both Israel and Egypt have been shut for more than a month.

Abbas invited many of the freed prisoners, most of them affiliated with Fatah, to a celebration at his headquarters in Ramallah. Israel holds some 10,000 prisoners. Those released Friday had at least a year left to their terms, but none was convicted of wounding or killing Israelis.

"This is the beginning," Abbas said. "Our work must continue until every prisoner returns to his home." He added: "I thank God that we are honored by the return of heroes of freedom to their home and the bosom of their homeland."

Ziad Abu Ein, the Palestinian deputy minister for prisoner affairs, said that those freed had an average of three years left on their sentences. They included Abdel Rahim Malouh, 61, deputy head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which murdered an Israeli cabinet minister six years ago.

The release began at dawn when prisoners in shackles were taken from the Ketziot prison camp in Negev and put on busses to the West Bank. At the Betuniya checkpoint, they disembarked, some of them kissing the ground, and boarded Palestinian buses to Ramallah.

One of the prisoners was not released because he apparently had switched his affiliation in prison to Hamas, Israeli officials said. Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Olmert, said Israel wanted to ensure that "we let out no one from Hamas." Fayyad, the prime minister, welcomed the release but said that "Israel can allow itself to be more bold" instead of practicing "a policy of small change." Palestinians want to release prisoners, he told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. "But I am a bit cynical in this matter. I look at the meetings that end in festive photographs and announcements of releases. The conflict between us and you is not over prisoners," he added.

Hamas called the release a crude political ploy. "This step has no real value because most of the prisoners are from one faction, and most were about to be released," said a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri.

In Beit Taamar, a village near Bethlehem, Khaled Hassan Abiyat, 37, was surrounded by friends and family after more than three years in prison. "I thank Abu Mazen for his efforts to release me and my brothers," he said, using a popular name for Abbas. "I'm very happy, it's an excellent feeling to be free."

The entire village seemed to come out to greet him, and cars were decorated with Palestinian flags and the yellow flags of Fatah. Men held Abiyat on their shoulders, and three gunmen with masks and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades written on their vests shot rifles into the air, joined by another 10 armed men.

On Abiyat's house was a huge poster with his photo and that of the late Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, with the words, "Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades." He was also greeted there by some 80 women singing wedding songs and handing around candy.

One villager said: "We have a wedding in the village this evening, but tonight we will celebrate two weddings - the actual one and the Khaled's release and homecoming."

Abiyat's cousin, Muhammad Abiyat, said: "This is an incomplete happiness. Something is missing. We want to see the release of all the Palestinian nation."

Reem Makhoul contributed reporting from Beit Taamar, West Bank.

The so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators has thrown its weight behind a U.S. plan to reinvigorate Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and pledged support for all Palestinians, including those in Gaza, Reuters reported from Lisbon.

The Quartet, which is made up of top diplomats from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, met Thursday for the first time since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from President Mahmoud Abbas's forces last month, effectively dividing Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank.

The meeting was also the first that former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain attended. Delegates hope he will help move the Middle East peace forward.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/20/africa/mideast.php