Israel to release Palestinian prisoners

{{Israel will release 26 Palestinian prisoners ahead of renewed peace talks set for later this week, an official statement said.}}

Following the government decision late on Sunday, the Israel Prisons Service published the names of the 26 selected to be freed ahead of the talks.

The detailed list, published shortly after the announcement, includes the prisoners’ names, felonies, date of arrest as well as the names of their victims.

Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton, reporting from Jerusalem, said that the Israeli security agency said most of them were “low risk” prisinors.

The longest serving prosoner has written a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying they “didn’t want to be used as a bargaining chip”, Journalists reported.

“You should not agree with the releases to give way in any way in these peace talks,” the letter said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a panel had decided upon the identity of the prisoners to be released within the next two days, the first of 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners to be freed in four stages, depending on progress in the talks.

{Aljazeera}