Last update - 00:00 21/11/2007
441 Palestinians to be released Sunday from Ketziot prison
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel announced Wednesday that next Sunday it would release 441 Palestinian prisoners from the Ketziot prison in southern Israel.
Most of the prisoners will be brought to the Beituniya checkpoint near Ramallah and let go, while 16 of them will be taken to the Erez border crossing into the Gaza Strip.
The prisoners were to be released as part of Israel's efforts to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a peace summit scheduled to be held in Annapolis, Maryland next Tuesday.
The date of the prisoner release was made public by the Israel Prisons Service, which had earlier released a list of names.
Originally Abbas had asked for the release of 2,000 of some 10,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons as a gesture of goodwill before the talks.
Israel released some 350 Palestinian prisoners in mid-July and at the beginning of October.
The list of prisoners scheduled to be released was made public Tuesday so that objections could be submitted.
Eight of the prisoners originally scheduled to be released were removed from the list since they had left Fatah and joined Hamas while in prison. Another prisoner's name was taken off the release list since he tried to excape from prison while incarcerated.