(AKI) - Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be released at the beginning of December. Olmert made the remarks following a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who he met in Jerusalem to discuss the deteriorating security situation in the Gaza Strip.The prisoner release is seen as a goodwill gesture from Olmert to the moderate Palestinian leader. There was no mention of which prisoners would be released.
A resolution by the European Parliament on the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails said in September that more than 11,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, are being held in Israeli prisons and detention centres. The European Parliament resolution said that most of those detainees were arrested in the Palestinian territories. It noted that the practice of holding Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in jails inside Israel contravenes the Jewish state's obligations under international law and urged it to uphold these.