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.
