Israel frees 500 Palestinian prisoners
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-22 00:10

JERUSALEM - Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners in a goodwill gesture Monday and President Bush pledged to support efforts to resolve the conflict, saying peace based on a two-state solution was within reach.

"Our greatest opportunity, and our immediate goal, is peace in the Middle East," Bush said in Brussels, Belgium, on the first day of a fence-mending trip to Europe.

Bush also promised to back Palestinian reform, which he said would give momentum to changes throughout the Middle East. Bush said he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to an international conference in London March 1 designed to help the Palestinian authority reform its finances and security system.

The prisoners were welcomed as heroes in the West Bank and Gaza. Near the West Bank town of Jenin, a 30-year-old bystander was killed accidentally by celebratory gunfire, and four people were wounded.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, a crowd of 15,000 welcomed a group of 100 prisoners. Dozens of gunmen fired in the air, among them members of the Islamic militant group Hamas who appeared with their weapons in public and unmasked for the first time since Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to an unofficial truce earlier this month.

"There will be no peace as long as there is a single prisoner in Israeli jails," the Hamas leader in the West Bank, Hassan Yousef, shouted through a bullhorn.

Israel holds more than 8,000 prisoners and has turned down Palestinian demands for a large-scale release, particularly of those involved in attacks on Israelis.

Suhail Abu Madala, 35, spent four years in prison and had three more years to serve when he was set free Monday.

"I cannot believe that I'm smelling the air of freedom, that I will see my family," Abu Madala said, choking back tears after being reunited with brothers and sisters and his 12-year-old son, Mohammed. "Nothing can describe my joy and my feelings.

Those freed had not been involved in attacks on Israelis.

Israel has promised to release 400 more prisoners within the next three months. A joint Israeli-Palestinian ministerial committee will decide which prisoners will be released in the second round. Israel is resisting Palestinian demands to free those serving long terms, including for attacks on Israelis.

In the West Bank, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia presented a new Cabinet to parliament Monday, but expectations of easy approval quickly fizzed during a stormy session. Qureia twice slammed down the microphone when peppered with complaints by legislators about government corruption and failure to carry out promised reforms.

If Qureia fails to win parliament backing for his team, he would have to step down. A vote initially set for later Monday was postponed until Tuesday.

In a historic Cabinet vote Sunday, Israel voted leave Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank and approved a revised West Bank separation barrier closer to Israel's pre-1967 frontier.

With the vote, an Israeli government agreed for the first time since capturing the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war to dismantle some of the dozens of Jewish settlements it has built there.

The Gaza withdrawal passed 17-5. The Cabinet must still approve each of four evacuation stages, but even opponents said those votes are just a formality.

Pinchas Wallerstein, one of the leaders of the council of Jewish settlements, called on supporters to begin "an aggressive and strong struggle" but not engage in violence.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri called the planned Israeli pullout "a result of the heroic resistance of our people."

The revised separation fence leaves 6 percent to 7 percent of the territory in Israeli hands, said Vice Premier Shimon Peres.

Some 15,000 to 17,000 Palestinians will also end up on the Israeli side of the barrier, officials said. Also, tens of thousands of Israeli settlers would continue to live on the Palestinian side of the barrier, as there is no decision to remove those enclaves.

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