JERUSALEM — Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners Monday, the first such mass release since Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took office last month.
At checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tearful Palestinian families greeted prison buses carrying the freed men. Some of the men stepped off the buses, dropped to their knees and kissed the ground.
Prisoner releases are seen as one of the most crucial means by which Israel can bolster Abbas' credibility in the eyes of his people and build on the momentum generated by this month's summit in Egypt.
Few issues so galvanize Palestinian public opinion as prisoner releases. Palestinians regard the prisoners as national heroes, and Abbas would risk being hounded out of office if he were unable to secure the freedom of large numbers of those behind bars in Israel. During peace negotiations between the two sides in 2003, Abbas' inability to win large-scale prisoner releases helped cut short his ill-fated tenure as prime minister under Yasser Arafat.
Freeing prisoners is a political risk for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is already under enormous pressure from conservatives over his plan to uproot Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. His Cabinet approved the withdrawal Sunday.
Some families of Israelis slain in Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks fought an unsuccessful legal battle to block Monday's prisoner release. Although none of those freed was directly involved in attacks on Israelis, televised scenes of prisoners jubilantly raising their manacled hands in the air were wrenching for many in Israel.
"Our loved ones are buried in the ground, and terrorists are being released," said Pnina Eisenman, whose mother and 5-year-old daughter were killed in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem bus stop in June 2002.
For Palestinians too, the homecomings were fraught with emotion.
"I am so happy to be out of prison," said Ismail Amassi, 43, who was jailed in early 2002 after being convicted of membership in a terrorist organization. "I could hardly picture anymore what my wife and children looked like.... I was so afraid I might die away from my family."
In the northern West Bank town of Jenin, one Palestinian man was killed by celebratory gunfire.
Monday's release was the largest since 1996, when Israel freed 800 Palestinians under the terms of the Oslo peace accords. An additional 400 prisoners are to be let out of Israeli jails in the next three months.
