Israel freed 224 Palestinian militants from its prisons Monday as a goodwill gesture to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, reported dpa.
Five buses carrying 206 prisoners crossed into Palestinian autonomous territory through the Beitunia checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah, welcomed by hundreds of relatives and supporters.
Dozens also awaited another 18 ex-detainees, who entered the Gaza Strip via the Erez crossing with Israel.
The Israeli move aims to boost Abbas opposite his bitter rival, the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling Gaza - most of those freed are members of the armed wings of his secular Fatah movement, while none are of Hamas.
The issue of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel is a highly emotional one in the Palestinian areas, where many have either a close or distant family member or friends in Israeli jails, or had so in the past.
The issue is also loaded in Israel, and the move was only made possible after the country's supreme court lifted a temporary injunction against it, imposed after Israeli victims of Palestinian shooting attacks and suicide bombings as well as a hardline settler leader filed separate petitions against the prisoners release.
One of the petitions was filed by the Israeli Almagor "terrorism victims" organization, which says that since 2000, 177 Israelis were killed in 30 attacks carried out by militants freed in similar prisoners amnesties in the past.
The 224 freed however were all prisoners "with no blood on their hands" - Palestinians involved in attacks which did not result in deaths or injuries. They have been jailed for involvement in foiled attacks, in the planting of bombs, in weapons smuggling or trade, in throwing fire bombs at Israeli soldiers or for membership in an armed faction declared "illegal" in Israel.
Israel currently holds 8,250 Palestinian militants and radicals in its jails, according to the B'Tselem human rights organization.
Abbas wants a blanket amnesty for all of them as part of a future peace deal.
Since he revived peace negotiations with Abbas at a summit in Annapolis, Maryland more than one year ago, Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorized three releases of mostly Fatah members, freeing more than 400 in December last year and under 200 in August.
Welcoming the prisoners freed Monday at his Ramallah headquarters, Abbas said that Palestinian happiness would "not be complete" until Israel freed all Palestinians it holds.
"We want all prisoners freed," said Abbas, who kissed and shook the hand of each returning ex-detainee.
Abbas also vowed the Palestinians would not accept any peace deal with Israel that "will not give us back all the Palestinian territories, particularly Jerusalem."
"I promise you that the refugee issue will remain as one of our priorities until their suffering ends," he added.
The borders of the future Palestinian state, and the fate of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents from the 1948-49 Arab- Israeli war, are two of the key issues being negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians.
Although none of its members were among those set free, Hamas for its part issued a statement also welcoming the release and calling the prisoners a "national and holy" issue.
Waiting for her 26-year-old son Saber, Jamaiyeh Suleiman, 50, was among the crowd of at times tearful relatives, who had gathered at Beitunia checkpoint early Monday morning, waving Palestinian as yellow flags of Abbas' secular Fatah movement and carrying posters of late Palestinian leader and Fatah founder Yasser Arafat.
A chaotic mass of cars joyously honked their horns as they followed the buses which passed in stages through the checkpoint, then drove straight to Abbas' Mukata'a headquarters. "He told me he was going to be released and I was very happy when I heard this," she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, but added: "As much as I am happy to see him out, I am also sad because other mothers are not going to see their sons."
An Israel Prison Service spokeswoman said that three more inmates who had been due to be freed as well Monday were not released and remained in their Israeli prison. She specified no reason.
