 |
 |
 |
|
|
A mother holds the picture of her imprisoned son. (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Associated Press January 9, 2005 |
|
| |
Israel expects Mahmoud Abbas to win Sunday's Palestinian presidential election and is ready to open talks with him, offering to free Palestinian prisoners if Abbas cracks down on Palestinian rocket attacks, senior Israeli officials said on condition of anonymity.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) Sunday and were to close 12 hours later, with 1.8 million Palestinians eligible to vote for a successor to Yasser Arafat, who died in November. Opinion polls predicted Abbas, who heads the Palestine Liberation Organization, will overwhelmingly win election as Palestinian Authority president.
The Israeli officials said the first meeting should take place shortly after the election.
They stopped short of stipulating a total halt to the Palestinian bombardment of mortar shells and locally-made Qassam rockets, which have so far killed two adults and three toddlers in the southern Israeli town of Sderot and the Neve Dekalim settlement in the Gaza Strip. Instead they spoke of "100 percent effort."
"The test for (Abbas) will be first and foremost to wage war against firing of Qassams. He will be asked to take very specific steps which are within his ability to implement," a senior official said. "That will be at the core of the first conversation we shall have when (the sides) meet."
The officials said the Israeli side would propose to Abbas that his security forces would close Palestinian metal workshops and explosives labs producing the projectiles. Israeli intelligence would identify the targets for the Palestinian forces, they added.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have in recent months increased mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli targets in an effort to make it appear as if Israel's planned withdrawal from the area this summer is a retreat. Israel has in turn launched military operations in Gaza to try to thwart the attacks.
The Israelis did not give any details of the planned prisoner release. Israel holds some 7,000 Palestinians in jails and military prisons.
Ensuring their release has been a constant Abbas demand, both in his election campaign and during a four-month stint as Palestinian prime minister in 2003.
Israel freed 159 prisoners last month as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership and as part of a swap with Egypt for an Israeli jailed by a Cairo court as a spy. But the Palestinians complained that most of the prisoners were near the ends of their terms anyway and demand a far broader release.
Israel refuses to release Palestinians it says carried out attacks on Israelis, while the Palestinians want all inmates freed.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
