MIDDLE EAST:Israel released 255 Palestinian prisoners yesterday, most of them members of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, in a move aimed at strengthening the Palestinian president in his showdown with Hamas, which last month seized control of the Gaza Strip
Shackled and travelling on buses with darkened windows, the prisoners left the Ketziot prison in southern Israel early yesterday morning and headed for the West Bank town of Ramallah. At a West Bank military checkpoint they got off the buses, were unshackled, and some kissed the ground, before getting on Palestinian buses for the final leg of their journey to freedom.
Thousands greeted the prisoners at Mr Abbas's headquarters in Ramallah. Family members hugged their released brethren, other prisoners were lifted on to the shoulders of the crowd.
Mr Abbas, who greeted the freed men, demanded that Israel release the remaining 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails. "This is the beginning," he said.
"Our work must continue until every prisoner returns to his home." For the Palestinians, the prisoner issue is a highly sensitive one. Prisoners are viewed as being in the vanguard of the struggle for national independence and their release has always been a key Palestinian demand.
"All the suffering, all the pain is gone," said Iyad Milhem (30), one of the freed men. "But we still hope for the release of all the prisoners."
In Israel the issue is also emotionally charged, with many Israelis opposing the release of prisoners who have been involved in attacks, or what political leaders refer to as prisoners "with blood on their hands". This explains why none of the prisoners released yesterday were involved in attacks in which Israelis were wounded or killed.
In recent weeks, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has made several gestures aimed at boosting Mr Abbas. Israel was hopeful, said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev yesterday, that the moves would "bring about a new period of co-operation and dialogue".
But the gap between Israel and the Palestinians is wide, with Mr Abbas wanting to immediately begin talks on the core issues at the heart of the conflict, like borders and refugees, and Mr Olmert rejecting any notion of final status negotiations.
Salam Fayyad, the prime minister appointed by Mr Abbas after he disbanded the Hamas-led government, said yesterday that Israel had to go much further than a series of incremental gestures that improve the atmospherics. "Your policy is a policy of small change," he told the daily Yediot Ahronoth in an interview. "You do a little here, a little there . . . Israel is a large, strong country. Israel can allow itself to be more bold."
Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza who has rejected Mr Abbas's decision to depose him as prime minister, welcomed "the release of any Palestinian prisoner", but warned "against the use of these issues as political bribes and traps" by Israel.