Olmert releases Fatah prisoners to boost Abbas

The Israeli cabinet has agreed to release 250 Palestinian security prisoners as a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas and his new West Bank government, which was established last month in competition with the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials predicted that the prisoners, all affiliated to Mr Abbas's Fatah faction, could be sent home by the end of this week.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, said: "We want to make use of all means to strengthen moderate forces within the Palestinian Authority... to encourage them to follow the path that... can create conditions for real talks."

Israel has already handed over millions of dollars in blocked tax revenues, which enabled Mr Abbas to pay civil servants their full salaries for the first time since Hamas won a parliamentary election in January 2006. It is also working with international relief organisations to enable food and medicines to enter the Gaza Strip, though the economy there remains under siege.

The United Nations reported last week that humanitarian imports through three crossings were now meeting 70 per cent of Gaza's minimum food needs, compared with 21 per cent a week earlier.

Even after the projected prisoner release, however, Israel will still be holding 10,000, including Hamas MPs and Marwan Barghouthi, a West Bank Fatah leader serving five life sentences for murder. Sa'eb Erakat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, protested that Ramallah had not been consulted about the list.

Government sources confirmed media reports that Mr Olmert last week sent back a list of prisoners drafted by security and legal officials because too many of those named were due for release in the near future anyway. Although he is still refusing to free any involved in murdering Israelis, he urged the panel to include prisoners who had served two-thirds of their sentences.

A new list is expected to be published within days. Objectors have to be given 48 hours to petition the Supreme Court, but officials are confident that the judges, who recently allowed four Jordanian killers to be sent home to Amman, will not delay the release.

Mark Regev, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, explained: "The whole process is designed to strengthen Mr Abbas. If the list was going to be one where he would simply be criticised, it would be a self-defeating exercise. Israel wants the Palestinians to understand that Mr Abbas can bring tangible benefits, that moderation pays."

One year after it unleashed a war in Lebanon, Israel is preparing to receive the first high-level Arab League delegation to visit the Jewish state. The Egyptian and Jordanian Foreign Ministers, Aboul Gheit and Abdel Ilah al Khatib, are expected in Jerusalem on Thursday. They will seek Israel's response to the 2002 Saudi Arabian peace initiative, which offered recognition in return for withdrawal from Arab territories conquered in the 1967 war.

Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister, told the cabinet yesterday that it was very important to engage with the Arab world to see what it could do to support a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians and encourage progress towards a two-state solution.

Israeli officials declined to comment on a report in a Palestinian newspaper that progress had been made towards a deal for repatriating two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Their abduction by Hizbollah on 12 July last year provoked the Lebanon onslaught.

Ofer Dekel, Mr Olmert's negotiator, was said to have met Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese who has served 28 years of a life sentence for killing an Israeli family in a cross-border raid. Hizbollah insists on his release, with other Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.