Israel began freeing 198 Palestinian prisoners today, saying it hoped the release would bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the US-backed pursuit of a peace deal.
The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli custody, Said al-Atabeh, 57, of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), was among those due to be released.
Atabeh was arrested in 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of involvement in bombings that killed an Israeli woman and wounded dozens of people.
The 194 men and four women were to receive a hero's welcome at a Palestinan Authority ceremony in Ramallah after being transported by bus from Ofer prison to the Beitunya checkpoint outside the West Bank city.
Before boarding Palestinian buses outside the jail, several of the prisoners knelt on the ground and touched their heads to the pavement in a gesture of thanksgiving.
Initially 199 prisoners had been slated to go free. But one was kept at the jail over a separate criminal charge, Israeli Prison Services spokesman Yaron Zamir said.
Some 11,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons and securing their release is a highly emotive issue in Palestinian society. The release got under way just hours before the planned arrival in Israel of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will try to spur progress towards a peace deal that Washington says it still hopes to achieve by year's end.
A release list published by the Israel Prisons Service also included Mohammad Abu Ali, 52, who was jailed for life in 1980 for killing an Israeli in Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
Abu Ali received a second life term for the jailhouse killing of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israeli authorities. Though in prison, he was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006.
Several Israeli cabinet ministers had opposed freeing Palestinians "with blood on their hands", an Israeli term for attacks that caused Israeli casualties, but a ministerial committee approved the list a week ago.
Popular Support
Israel hopes the release would boost popular support for Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists last year, and show Palestinians that dialogue can achieve results.
"It's not easy to release prisoners, especially prisoners that were involved directly in terrorist acts against innocent civilians," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel saw the release was a "confidence-building measure, a gesture" to Abbas that may boost his Fatah faction that lost control of Gaza to Hamas Islamists last year, and "serve to strengthen the Israeli-Palestinian peace process", Regev added.
About half of the prisoners on the release list were to have completed their sentences next year, but 43 had at least five more years to serve.
Offences listed next to prisoners' names ranged from stone-throwing to shooting attacks.