JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel approved on Sunday the release of 90 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmud Abbas for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan amid efforts to jumpstart the peace process.
The prisoners are all members of Abbas's Fatah party from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and are being freed after assurances given by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in talks with Abbas in recent weeks, officials said.
"This is a regular gesture which we have traditionally done and they will be released in accordance with existing criteria," Olmert said following the decision on the release by the Israeli cabinet.
Palestinians welcomed the decision, but said that Israel must do more to support the moderate Palestinian leadership headed by Abbas.
None of those to be released were involved in attacks that killed Israelis and all have at least one year left to serve, officials said.
The Israeli cabinet voted to release the prisoners -- out of the more than 11,000 currently held by Israel -- during its weekly meeting.
The list of prisoners will now need to be approved by a ministerial commission that will include members of the Shin Beth internal security services, and once the list is made public there will be a 48-hour period in which Israelis can lodge appeals against the release of specific prisoners.
The announcement came as the four main sponsors of the Middle East peace process -- the so-called Quartet -- were to meet at the United Nations later on Sunday to prepare for a US-sponsored peace conference expected in November.
Olmert and Abbas have held a series of talks in recent months in a bid to hammer out some kind of an agreement before the conference to jumpstart peace negotiations that have been dormant for seven years.
Gideon Ezra, the environment minister and a member of Olmert's Kadima party, told public radio that the latest prisoner release "would favour the restart of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority."
But Eli Yishai, Israel's trade minister and a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party who voted against the release, said that "previous gestures proved themselves to be futile."
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat welcomed the decision, saying that "any prisoner released is a welcome move to his family and his people."
But he underlined that residents of the occupied West Bank continue to suffer from the more than 500 roadblocks that constrain movement, saying that "the situation is worse today than last week and something must be done."
And Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs Ashraf al-Ajrami told AFP that "this step does not help the Palestinian leadership. What can help is a discussion of all issues and the alleviation of Israeli measures against the Palestinians.
"The number of Israeli checkpoints is not decreasing but increasing. When Israel frees 100 Palestinians, it puts in jail the same number, as it has during the last three days," he added.
During an operation in the West Bank's northern town of Nablus last week, the Israeli army said it had arrested 49 Palestinians, among them some suspected of intending to carry out "terror attacks."
The last time Israel carried out a major prisoner release was in July, when it freed more than 250 Palestinians in a bid to bolster Abbas in the aftermath of the bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas the previous month.
Since the Islamists took control of the territory, Israel, the European Union and the United States have all pledged to bolster Abbas in the West Bank while isolating Hamas, which remains blacklisted by the West as a terror group.
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