TULKAREM, West Bank, Feb 21 (AFP) - Hundreds of Palestinians held emotional reunions with their families on Monday after being freed from Israeli prisons and hailed as heroes by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
Behind the tears and joy sparked by the releases lay the political motive of trying to help revive the Middle East peace process.
Driven from the Ketziot military detention centre in southern Israel, the detainees were freed at checkpoints in the Tulkarem, Ramallah, Jenin and Hebron regions of the West Bank and on the Gaza-Israel border.
At Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, where around 170 prisoners were being freed, the men rushed to embrace wives and children as they climbed off the buses, many of them in tears.
Many of the relatives were waving Palestinian flags and the banners of militant groups while some of the prisoners kissed the ground.
Farha al-Diq said it was the happiest day of her life as she set eyes on two of her sons for the first time in years.
"I haven't tasted joy for four years," said the 43-year-old as she hugged sons Rami and Mohammed.
"I have never known such a happy occasion. I hope that peace will prevail and that all the mothers of prisoners will be as happy as I am today."
Mohammed stressed that Israel's release of all 7,600 Palestinian prisoners was vital for the peace process.
"We won't have peace in the region unless all the prisoners are released without discrimination, especially those serving life sentences," added Mohammed, a follower of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who served four years of a seven-year sentence.
Similar scenes took place at the Beitunia checkpoint near Ramallah, where a crowd of around 500 people gathered to greet the release of 53 local prisoners, who then travelled to the Palestinian Authority's Muqataa leadership compound for a meeting with Abbas.
"I am delighted that these heroic prisoners can return to their families and enjoy their liberty once more in a country which is also going to be freed," Abbas told them.
"We are very happy with the release of this first group but it is only the start," he added.
"You know that the prisoners' question is at the top of the list of our priorities in negotiations (with Israel) and we will spare no effort to empty the prisoners."
Before hearing from Abbas, former detainees paid their respects at the graveside of his late predecessor Yasser Arafat who died in November and is buried in the grounds of the Muqataa compound.
The releases are the latest in a series of confidence-building measures which included the return on Sunday of 16 militants who had been deported from their homes in the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said the releases were taking place "in light of the ongoing cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, and as part of ongoing discussions with Palestinian Authority security officials."
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will continue its ongoing obligation and commitment to the security and well-being of the citizens of Israel, and will operate when needed to fulfill its obligations to the state," it added.
The 500 released on Monday are the first of a batch of 900 which Israel has agreed to free. The identities of the other 400 are to be the subject of talks by a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee.
The numbers agreed on so far by the Israeli government stop well short of the demands of Palestinian negotiators who have been pressing for up to 5,000 of the estimated 7,600 inmates to be freed.
Radical Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad dismissed the significance of the releases.
"It's a deception. They have only freed prisoners whose terms were about to finish or who were in administrative detention," senior Jihad official Mohammed al-Hindi told AFP.
Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said the releases were "only an Israeli manoeuvre because they would have finished their sentences shortly."
02/21/2005 14:40 GMT - AFP