Israel releases 334 Palestinian prisoners to joyous homecoming

By Craig Nelson, INTERNATIONAL STAFF

Transcribed from the clipping

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Israel freed more than 330 Palestinian prisoners Wednesday, a move it called a goodwill gesture to advance the U.S.-backed peace plan. Palestinian officials reacted to the release with scorn, calling it inadequate. The mood in this biblical town was hardly dismissive, however.

After about 40 Palestinian prisoners were let off an Israeli bus at a nearby checkpoint and their handcuffs were removed, they were showered with an exuberant welcome home by more than a thousand friends, family and supporters as they strode along Pope John Paul II Street.

Some of the freed prisoners were thrust aloft and carried on the shoulders of supporters, while others were mobbed by well-wishers eager to hug and kiss them. Scores of children, many no more than 6, served as triumphal escorts, waving the green and black flags of Islamic militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and sporting headbands to match.

Wednesday's prisoner release came a day after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, angered partly by the small number of inmates that Israel announced it would let go, cancelled a summit with Israeli leader Ariel Sharon that had been scheduled to coincide with the releases.

Israel had hoped that the releases would be, as Sharon adviser Arnon Perlman put it Wednesday, “a trust-building move” that would “help promote the (peace) process.” But Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior member of the Palestinian Authority Cabinet, called the releases “worthless and meaningless” and a “theatrical step to appease Washington.”

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said, “Israel should free all the prisoners,” a sentiment also expressed by most of the prisoners released Wednesday.

Israel has rejected demands for a mass release of the more than 5,300 Palestinian prisoners it says it still holds, saying that as long as militant groups are not dismantled, it cannot risk swelling their ranks. Sharon has spurned demands from members of his right-wing coalition government to release no suspected militants at all.

The 3-month-old “road map” peace plan, which calls for an end to violence and the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005, does not specifically mention prisoner releases. But the three main Palestinian militant organizations have made the continuation of a cease-fire they agreed to June 29 conditional on Israel freeing jailed Palestinians.

None of the 334 prisoners released Wednesday was accused of direct participation in attacks on Israelis. More than 180 had been convicted by Israeli courts of crimes ranging from stone-throwing to membership in “terrorist organizations,” and at least 150 others had been detained without trial on unspecified “security grounds.”

Although Israeli authorities said none of those prisoners has “blood on their hands,” the assurances did not ease the concerns of Malka Deri, a 40-year-old Israeli who received burns over more than 90 percent of her body when she was riding on a Jerusalem bus that was blown up by a suicide bomber in November 2002.

“I'm very worried they will be even more motivated to violence after their release. They may want to take revenge,” said Deri, who watched TV news coverage of the release. The expressions of joy she saw on the faces of freed Palestinian prisoners gnawed at her: “It is painful to see the prisoners meet their families and raise their hands in a victory sign.

They look happy as though they have won. I survived a suicide bombing, but other neighbors of mine did not, and it is very painful for their families.”

Context added by this archive

Photograph credited Khalil Hamra, Associated Press. The byline foot gives cnelson@coxnews.com.

Cite this item

"Israel releases 334 Palestinian prisoners to joyous homecoming," Austin American-Statesman, 7 August 2003. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2003-014. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2003-014