Nablus mayor among six released by Israel
Source: AFP August 7, 2008 NABLUS - Israel on Wednesday released the mayor of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, a member of the Islamist Hamas movement jailed over a year ago, Palestinian security officials said.
The release of Adli Yaish, who had been arrested 15 months ago, came as Israel announced it would free over 150 Palestinian prisoners by the end of August as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
It was not immediately clear if the two decisions were related.
Israel also freed five Palestinian prisoners as part of a UN-brokered prisoner exchange with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, the prisons administration said.
Prisons spokeswoman Yarona Linhar said the five prisoners, all minors, were released from Hasharon prison, where they had been jailed for hurling rocks or firebombs and were due to be released by the end of next year.
A Palestinian security official said the five prisoners had been released at a military checkpoint near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said the release came in response to a request by Abbas.
“We hope this gesture will help the peace process,” he told reporters after the latest meeting between the two leaders, referring to US-backed talks formally relaunched at an international conference in November.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the meeting was “successful” and that Israel had agreed to release more than 150 Palestinian prisoners.
“We agreed with the Israelis there will be a new batch of prisoners released on the 25th of August,” Erakat told reporters after the meeting.
Erakat declined to give names but said Abbas urged Israel to release several prominent and long-serving prisoners, including Marwan Barghuti, a popular leader in Abbas’ Fatah party seen as a leading contender to succeed the Palestinian president.
Abbas also wants Israel to release prominent leaders from other factions, including parliament speaker Aziz Dweik from the Islamist Hamas movement, and Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Erakat said.
Wednesday’s decision drew swift criticism from Israel’s right-wing Opposition Likud party, which said it endangered efforts to free Shalit.
“(The decision) to liberate Palestinians without receiving anything in return is a mistake for security and efforts to liberate Gilad Shalit,” Likud MP Gideon Saar said in a statement.
Regev insisted however that “this peace process will continue. All sides are committed to the process.”
Erakat insisted however that the substance of the talks was more important than the timing. “We want an agreement, a fair agreement, and I don’t think that the time should be a sword on our necks,” he said.
He also said the Palestinians would never accept a “partial” or “interim” agreement, and that all the central issues in the conflict, from the fate of Palestinian refugees to the status of Jerusalem, would have to be addressed.