GAZA, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Israel handed over 198 Palestinian prisoners on Monday as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and to give an impetus to peace talks ahead of a visit by the U.S. secretary of state.
The prisoners, whose release was approved by Israel on August 17, were handed over at a military checkpoint near Jerusalem and taken to Ramallah in the West Bank.
President Abbas told a crowd of supporters in the city: "We are filled with joy by the release of this group of prisoners, but we will not be content until all prisoners are released - the 11,000 who are still waiting."
The handover came hours before Condoleezza Rice was due to arrive in the region, to encourage progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told reporters that despite opposition in Israel to the prisoners' release, the move "can bolster the negotiation process and foster goodwill."
"It's not easy to release prisoners, particularly individuals that were directly involved in terrorist attacks against innocent civilians," he said.
Among the released prisoners are Said al-Attaba, who had been behind bars since 1977 for a killing an Israeli woman, and Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Ali, a Fatah lawmaker who was jailed in 1979 for killing an Israeli settler.
Families of victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks had protested against the release of the prisoners, and filed an unsuccessful petition with the Israeli High Court.
The thousands of Palestinians still being held in Israel in its prisons include several dozen women and children.
President Abbas has urged Israel to free a number of prominent Palestinian activist leaders, including Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Saadat and Abdel Aziz Duwaik.
Barghouti, the leader of the al-Mustaqbal political party, was arrested by Israel for organizing terror attacks. Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is in jail for assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, and Duwaik, a member of Hamas, and the current speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was arrested in Israel for his ties with the radical Islamic group.
Israel and the Palestinian National Authority pledged at last November's U.S.-sponsored meeting in Annapolis to resume peace talks, draft a settlement plan by late 2008 and come to terms on the form of a future independent Palestinian state. However their talks have so far made little tangible progress.
