JERUSALEM — Israel freed a bagman for the late Saddam Hussein and 56 other Palestinian militants from prison Monday in a gesture aimed at strengthening the moderate Palestinian leadership that favors peace negotiations.
But the propaganda value of the move was diminished by Israeli gunfire that wounded a Palestinian teenager in a crowd awaiting freed inmates and by Israel’s decision to expand its presence in the West Bank by opening a new police headquarters.
Israel is holding talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his West Bank-based administration to prepare for an international peace conference next month in the United States. The diplomatic effort is aimed largely at isolating Hamas, the Islamic movement that seized control of the Gaza Strip in June and refuses to renounce violence against Israel.
The prisoners freed Monday, who belong to Abbas’ Fatah movement and other secular factions, were serving sentences for militant activity against Israel that did not result directly in fatalities.
Bused from Ketziot prison in southern Israeli and freed at an army checkpoint in the West Bank, the men kissed the asphalt before a welcoming crowd of flag-waving relatives and supporters.
Among them was Rakad Salim, 66, who had served five years of an eight-year sentence for distributing millions of dollars from the late Iraqi president to families of suicide bombers and other militants killed, wounded or imprisoned in the Palestinian uprising at the start of this decade.
Salim, secretary-general of the Arab Liberation Front, received a VIP escort from the checkpoint in a van with Abbas’ minister for prisoner affairs. Supporters met the van, whisked the militant out and paraded him around on their shoulders.
“I feel today that I was born again,” Salim said, beaming.
He added: “We hope this is the beginning of emptying all the (Israeli) prisons.”
Prisoner releases are hugely emotive for Palestinians, who for the most part regard their 11,000 compatriots held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had to overcome objections within his Cabinet to win approval and then delayed the release because of escalating rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from Gaza.
Some Cabinet ministers argued that Israel had gained nothing for its security in return for the release of 255 prisoners in a similar gesture in July.
Monday’s prisoner release was to benefit 87 Palestinians but was marred by a bureaucratic hitch that kept 30 behind bars. Those inmates, all from Gaza, needed a formal pardon from Israeli President Shimon Peres, who signed it late in the day. They are expected to go home today.
Word of the delay came after hundreds of Palestinians had gathered at the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza to wait for the prisoners. Israeli soldiers fired from watchtowers as the crowd surged toward a no-man’s zone, wounding a 14-year-old boy, witnesses said.
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