Israel agrees to free Palestinian prisoners

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a conference in Amman Israel on Saturday announced it will release some Palestinian prisoners as a "gesture", after the two sides agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations frozen for three years.
Some of those to be released are "heavyweights" who have been held in Israeli prisons for decades, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz told public radio.
His announcement came hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Amman late on Friday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had agreed to meet to pave the way for a resumption of direct peace talks.
Kerry said that as a first step Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni would meet him in Washington "to begin initial talks within the next week or so".
The last round of direct talks broke down in 2010 over the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The issue of continued expansion of Jewish settlements remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks between the two sides. Steinitz said on Saturday his government would engage in the staged release of a "limited number" of prisoners, some of whom he defined as "heavyweights", who have been in jail for periods of up to 30 years.
Steinitz did not note how many prisoners would be released, but said "there will definitely be a certain gesture here".
According to a recent assessment by Israeli rights group B'Tselem, at least 4,713 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel.
Their release is one of the Palestinians' key demands for resuming peace talks, particularly the 107 prisoners arrested prior to 1993, when the Oslo peace accords were signed. Steinitz stressed that aside from the prisoner releases, Israel would not be compromising on "diplomatic issues", and that there was no agreement on a settlement construction freeze or on accepting the borders that existed prior to 1967 Six-Day war as the basis for talks, as demanded by the Palestinians.
He said for their part the Palestinians had committed to "negotiate seriously" for "at least nine months," during which they would refrain from action at the United Nation and other international institutions.
Kerry gave away very little detail of the agreement, which came after he spent four days consulting the Israeli and Palestinian leadership from his base in an Amman hotel and a late Friday helicopter dash to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
Just minutes before boarding a plane to fly home, Kerry told reporters both sides had reached "an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations".
"This is a significant and welcome step forward," he added, having doggedly pushed the two sides to agree to resume talks in six intense trips to the region since becoming the top US diplomat in February.
But he warned that the issues separating the sides were "difficult" and "complicated".
A US State Department official said Kerry had wrenched a commitment from both sides "on the core elements that will allow direct talks to begin".
Israelis and Palestinians remain far apart on final status issues including the borders of a future Palestinian state, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the fate of Jerusalem which both want as their capital.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has also repeatedly called for a freeze to Israeli settlement building and a release of prisoners.
Analysts cautioned against reading too much into the latest developments.
Chico Menashe, diplomatic commentator for Israeli public radio, likened the situation to "a half-baked cake Kerry removed from the stove. Kerry convinced the Israelis and Palestinians it was edible, and both sides agreed to eat it."
Gal Berger, Palestinian affairs correspondent for Israel's public radio pointed to the fact that Yitzhak Molcho, the personal envoy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has already been holding talks with Erakat, which were still ongoing.
"Now Livni is being added, but it is still not a meeting at the level of the leaders (Netanyahu and Abbas)," he said.
Predictably, the Islamist Hamas movement which runs the Gaza Strip rejected a return to talks, its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri saying Abbas had no legitimate right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people.
Source: AFP