Israeli soruces said the authorities will release 150 Palestinians prisoners from its detention centers, to ease the overcrowding situation.
Israeli sources said discussions about the release began last month. The release decision had to be approved by high ranking Israeli miltiary officials such as Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Maj. General Moshe Kaplanski head of army central command.
Israeli sources did not mention whether the release has to do with the hunger strike the Palestinian prisoners organized in August which lasted for 18 days.
The strike ended with some demands addressed by the Israeli Prison Authorities. Some prisoners’ sources said, there were secret negotiations with the prisons’ authorities and results were not published to the media.
Israel declared since the beginning of the strike that it will not respond to any of the demands of the prisoners. Minister of Public security then, Tzahi Hanegbi said that even if the prisoners starve to death, Israel will not respond to their demands.
The 150 selected prisoners are all nearing the end of their prison terms, and most would have been released by the end of this year. Most were convicted of rock throwing.
While Israeli military sources claimed military is focusing only on what they called urgent arrests in the past weeks based on Shin Bet requests, around 200 have been arrested in the past two weeks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Besides, in the last few days, some 30 Palestinians from the West Bank city of Hebron were arrested.
Currently there are around 7500 Palestinian prisonres in Israeli jails facing bad living conditions. The prisoners ended an 18 days hunger strike in protest their bad living conditions after reaching some terms with the Israeli Prison Authorities.
