Israel Released Fewer Palestinian Prisoners
Twenty Palestinian prisoners were removed from the list of prisoners to be released from Israeli custody, Tuesday, December 9. In what they described as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government had stated that it would release 250 Palestinian prisoners – the list is now down to 230. The move to release these prisoners was intended to honor Eid al-Adha, “…the Muslim festival marking the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca,” according to the Israeli Ministerial Prisoner Release Committee. All of the prisoners are associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular nationalist Fatah movement rather than Hamas – the organization currently in control of the Gaza Strip territory – which the Israeli government has classified as a terrorist organization.
Paul Shapiro
