Moneer Mansour, the head of Prisoners Friends’ Association (Ansar Al-Sajeen), said in a press statement that the release of the prisoners will help give direct peace talks between the PA and Israel momentum going forward.

Mansour added that Israel has yet to respond to the PA’s request. Ansar Al-Sajeen is registered under Israeli law, and is one of the largest providers of legal representation to Palestinian detainees in Israeli military courts. It pays legal visits to Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel and advocates for their rights. It also works with prisoners’ families in need and has facilitated Palestinian family visits.

According to the official, Abbas wants to successfully broker the release of Palestinian prisoners in order to improve his image on the Palestinian street that would give him a mandate to continue peace talks with Israel.

Mansour said that this would only constitute an intermediary measure and that in a final peace agreement the PA would expect the release of all Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli prisons.

According to the recent Palestinian statistics, there are 7,500 Palestinians, including 270 under the age of 18, are currently held in 10 prisons and three detention camps in Israel and in the West Bank. There are also three prisoners who have been in jail for more than 30 years, and 315 prisoners are held for more than 15 years.

He stated that the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would be independent of any deal to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Meanwhile, the Hamas movement moved Shalit to a new hideout after the recent arrest of its intelligence officer Mohammed Dababish by the Egyptian security services 10 day ago. Shalit has been in Hamas captivity since he was abducted in a 2006 cross-border raid.

The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot quoted Egyptian intelligence sources as saying that following the arrest of Dababish, Shalit’s captures were ordered to move him to a new location immediately

The sources told Yediot Ahronot that Dababish is among of a handful of Hamas officials who know exactly where Shalit is being held and who his captors are.

Egypt and Germany mediated several rounds of talks between Hamas and Israeli government in late 2009 to discuss the release of Shalit in exchange with Palestinian prisoners.

The mediators failed to broker a deal because Hamas presented a list of 1,000 names of Palestinian and Arab prisoners and insisted that Israel free them, while the Israeli government wanted to expel and remove some of the names from the list.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure from Shalit’s family, Israeli academics and public figures to step up negotiations for the release of the soldier.