Israel is set to free 26 Palestinian prisoners today to help underpin renewed peace talks, after its High Court yesterday rejected an appeal against their release by relatives of some of the Israelis they killed.

Authorities were planning to transport the group from jail in the dead of night in the early hours this morning. The men, arrested between 1985 and 2001, were to return to homes in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli official said they would be taken in vehicles with sealed windows to prevent a repetition of scenes in which released Palestinian prisoners have stretched out their hands in V-for-Victory signs.

Disdain for the prisoners is strong in Israel, whose media have featured detailed accounts of their attacks on Israelis since a release roster was published two days ago. Palestinians regard the men as heroes in a struggle for statehood.

The three-justice High Court panel ruled the Government had been within its purview to free them, although Chief Justice Asher Grunis wrote in the decision that “our hearts are with the families, who are victims of terror”.

Yet Ada Kuenstler, whose 84-year-old father, Avraham Kuenstler, was killed in 1992 by a prisoner due to be released, said she understood Israel’s political considerations in freeing Abdallah Salah from his 99-year sentence.

“I want peace and do not ask for revenge, and I am not objecting to this move because I want to hope that this will bring peace a little closer,” she told Reuters.

Hours after the release, US-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians, which opened in Washington on July 30, were due to resume in Jerusalem, with further negotiations expected later in the occupied West Bank.

The 26 prisoners due to be released were among a total of 104 that Israel has agreed to free in four stages.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has vowed to seek freedom for all Palestinian prisoners, is set to gain by the prisoner releases, a highly charged issue in a society where thousands are held in Israeli custody.