Palestinian prisoners go free
2005-02-21 12:11
Jerusalem - Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners in a good-will gesture on Monday, a day after the government gave final approval to a pullout from Gaza and a revised route of the West Bank separation barrier.
With the historic Cabinet vote, Israel began charting its final borders, bypassing negotiations and angering the Palestinians.
The release of Palestinian prisoners was one of the gestures Sharon agreed to at his summit with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas earlier this month.
Convoys of buses carrying shackled inmates left Israel's desert prison camp of Ketziot at dawn on Monday.
Israel has promised to release another 400 prisoners within the next three months. A joint Israeli-Palestinian ministerial committee will decide which prisoners will be released in the second round.
Sunday's vote was the first time an Israeli government agreed to dismantle some of the dozens of Jewish settlements it has built since capturing the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war.
However, in approving the route of the West Bank barrier, Israel acted unilaterally on what was to be a key issue in peace talks with the Palestinians, and signalled it will keep a chunk of prime West Bank land close to Jerusalem, including two large Jewish settlement blocs, Maaleh Adumim and Gush Etzion.
Final borders
Several Cabinet ministers acknowledged that while the barrier was ostensibly built as a security shield, its route would help determine Israel's final borders with a Palestinian state. Sharon has said he wants to keep large West Bank settlement blocs in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Abbas has demanded that construction of the barrier be stopped.
Sharon is a former settler patron and has been a key proponent of Jewish settlement expansion during most of his political career.
"In all my years of service I have faced hundreds, if not thousands of decisions, some of them matters of life or death, but the decision on the disengagement plan was for me the hardest of all," he said.
The Gaza withdrawal won approval from 17 Cabinet ministers, including eight from the moderate Labour Party. Five ministers from Sharon's ruling Likud Party, led by his rival Benjamin Netanyahu, voted against the plan.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Mushir al-Masri called the planned Israeli pullout "a result of the heroic resistance of our people".
The vote for the barrier route was almost unanimous, 20-1 with one abstention.
Several Cabinet ministers acknowledged that the barrier has implications far beyond the original security concept. "The route of the fence is significant in terms of future negotiations over Israel's borders," said minister Tzipi Livni.
Palestinians objected but complained they had no leverage to stop the construction.
"Israel is creating facts on the ground in the West Bank," said Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi. "Sharon wants payback in the West Bank for the disengagement from Gaza, particularly Jerusalem."
- AP