Islamic Hamas movement Monday slammed Israel's release of 198 Palestinian prisoners by saying that none of those released belongs to either Hamas movement or the Islamic Jihad (Holy War).
Earlier on Monday, Israel freed 198 Palestinian prisoners from its jails as a goodwill gesture to Abbas. All of them are politically affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah movement and other national factions and none of the freed prisoners is from Gaza.
Ismail Radwan, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza told reporters that releasing prisoners who are only affiliated with one party "is devoting the status of inter-Palestinian division among the Palestinians."
"Focusing on the release of prisoners that belong to a certain Palestinian and excluding other prisoners belong to other factions is a real discrimination," said Radwan, adding "this is exactly what Abbas wanted."
Radwan, whose movement has held the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for more than two years in Gaza, said "when Hamas negotiates a prisoners swap with Israel, it seeks to release all prisoners without any discrimination."
Meanwhile, Palestinian Minister of Prisoners' Affairs in Salam Fayyad's government Ashraf el-Ajrami said the Palestinian side is calling for the release of all prisoners, giving the priority to elderly, women, children and sick prisoners.
"Today's release of 198 prisoners from Israeli jails is completely an Israeli unilateral action and the Palestinian side can not decide who the prisoners that should be released are," said el-Ajrami.
During his meeting with Abbas two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Abbas that Israel would release 200 prisoners.
Source: Xinhua
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