An Israeli committee approved on Tuesday evening a list of 432 Palestinian security prisoners to be released ahead of a US-sponsored Middle East peace summit.

 

The Ministerial Committee on the Release of Prisoners was tasked to scrutinize the list of the prisoners to be released, after the cabinet decided on Monday to release 441 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails, local daily The Jerusalem Post reported.

 

A number of the inmates that appeared on the original list were removed, because they aligned themselves with the Islamic Hamas movement while in prison, the report said.

 

The Israel Prison Service has made public the names of the prisoners to be released in order to give civilians the opportunity to contest the release of individual prisoners in courts.

 

The cabinet approval of prisoners release is seen as a goodwill gesture to strengthen Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who asked Israel to free 2,000 Palestinian prisoners before the high profile summit slated for next week in Annapolis, Maryland.

 

An estimate of 10,000 Palestinian security prisoners are currently incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

 

The Annapolis meeting, proposed by US President George W. Bush in July, was aimed to revive the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2007)