Israel approves release of 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel's government has approved the release of 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners, as part of a deal which will see peace talks resume this week, BBC News reported.

A list of names chosen by a ministerial committee was published overnight. The prisoners will be freed on Tuesday, Aug 13. The delay allows time for last-minute legal challenges by victims' families.

The announcement came after Palestinian officials accused Israel of trying to sabotage the peace talks by approving nearly 1,200 new settlement homes.

An Israeli government spokesman dismissed the criticism, saying every peace initiative so far had proposed that the settlements in question become Israeli territory. The Palestinians have previously agreed in principle to minor land swaps.

About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

On Sunday evening, a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that 26 prisoners would be released. It said they would be freed at least 48 hours after a list of their names was published by the Israeli Prison Service. The list was made public early on Monday, once the families of their victims had been informed.

Fourteen of the prisoners will be returned to the Gaza Strip and 12 to the West Bank. Eight were due to be released in the next three years, two of them in the next six months.

The decision was made after a meeting chaired by Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon and including Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Science Minister Yaakov Perry, as well as the heads of the Israeli Prison Service and the Shin Bet security service.

The committee was due to be chaired by Netanyahu, but he was instead recovering from overnight emergency surgery to repair a hernia.