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Israel releases Gaza prisoners
02/10/2007 16:25 - (SA)
Gaza City - Twenty-nine Palestinian prisoners returned in triumph to Gaza on Tuesday after being released by Israel, in celebrations marred by two people being wounded as troops fired on the greeting crowd.
As the men were crossing the Erez checkpoint between Israel and the Hamas-run territory, a crowd of nearly 1 000 people waiting for them on the Palestinian side surged forward.
Israeli soldiers opened fire to keep the crowd at bay, wounding two people including a photographer for the Reuters news agency, medics said.
An army spokesperson said: "There was a crowd of people moving toward the Israeli side of the Erez terminal.
"The force fired into the air to make them stop. When they didn't stop, they fired at their lower bodies. We got reports that one person was wounded and are checking into it."
As soon as he crossed Erez, 24-year-old Sami al-Aydi happily collapsed into the arms of his waiting father, Abedrabbo. "I am so glad to see my son again and have him spend the rest of Ramadan among us.
No explanation
"After what the Israelis did yesterday, I was scared that he wouldn't be freed," he said of his son, who had spent four years in prison after being convicted of involvement in anti-Israeli attacks and had nine years left on his sentence.
The Gazans were originally due to be released on Monday along with 57 West Bankers, as part of a prisoner release that Israel approved as a gesture of goodwill to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
But instead they remained behind bars at the Ketziot prison, after it was discovered at the last minute that President Shimon Peres had not signed their pardons.
Peres eventually signed the papers late on Monday. No official explanation was given for the delay.
Lurban Hassannin, nine, waited impatiently with her younger brother Hassan and her grandfather for her father Abdelhadi, who had served half of his 14-year sentence.
"I am so excited," she said happily. "My father will spend the holiday with us. We're used to spending sad Ramadan at our grandmother's house."
Aiming to boost Abbas
The Israeli cabinet approved the release of the nearly 90 prisoners - out of the more than 11 000 detainees currently held - on September 23 after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave assurances to Abbas during their regular talks ahead of a US-sponsored international peace conference expected in November.
In all 86 men, two minors among them, were released.
Israel has been aiming to boost Abbas in his powerbase in the West Bank ever since Islamist Hamas, a group pledged to destroying the Jewish state, seized control of Gaza by routing forces loyal to the moderate president in mid-June.
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