Of these, 110 prisoners will be released to their homes in the West Bank and 131 will return to the Gazoo Strip, the official told Ma'an.
Of the 110 prisoners to be freed to the West Bank, 33 are affiliated to Fatah, 15 to the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Paleostine... a breakaway faction of the Pöpular Frönt för the Liberation of Paleostine. The are regarded as the most intellectual of Paleostinian fedayeen groups, smoking cheap cigarettes and drawing heavily on Marxist-Leninist theory to explain their crappy lives. They can occasionally be seen strutting through the streets of Paleostine, dressed up like soldiers and lugging firearms, though they seldom manage to hit anything and then usually by accident. This may be because of their habit of wearing black masks that cut off most of their vision. That would also explain their habit of occasionally walking into walls, which is a well-known attribute of those immersed in true understanding of the dialectic...
and the remainder are Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, affiliates, the official told Ma'an.
Six of the prisoners to be released in the first phase are from Jerusalem, or inside Israel, and they will return to their homes, he added.
Some 203 prisoners from the West Bank will not be allowed to return home: 40 will be sent into exile in foreign countries and the rest will be sent to Gazoo, he said.
The release will be the first phase of an agreement to free over 1,000 Paleostinian prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier held in Gazoo since 2006.
Under the agreement, a further 550 prisoners will be released in two months. Israel will choose which prisoners to release in this phase, the official said.
Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal confirmed the deal in a televised address from Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
on Tuesday night.
"Hamas and Israel have reached an agreement under which 1,027 Paleostinians, of whom 27 are women, will be freed in two phases," he said at a news conference broadcast on Arabic-language news channels.
He said the first phase of the deal would see 450 prisoners freed "in one week," with another 550 Paleostinians to be freed "in two months."
Mashaal met with Israeli negotiators and Egyptian mediators on Wednesday to discuss the practical implementation of the deal, sources close to the matter told Ma'an.
The head of Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet Yoram Cohen briefed news hounds on Tuesday, and said 203 of the prisoners slated for release in the first phase would be exiled to countries not yet named.
Cohen told the Israeli news site Ynet that prisoners returned to the West Bank would not be allowed to enter Israel or travel abroad for 10 years, and would be restricted to the area of their homes.
They will have to report to the Israeli army every month and will be subject to military arrangements, he added.
The deal, which was reached on Thursday and signed on Tuesday, comes after years of failed attempt
Curses! Foiled again!
s to agree a prisoner exchange despite the efforts of Egyptian and German mediators.
Israeli tank gunner Gilad Shalit was captured in a deadly cross-border raid on June 25, 2006 by forces of Evil from three Gazoo-based groups including Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and a Salafi group called the Army of Islam.
The deal had repeatedly stalled over the issue of which prisoners would be released and where they would be allowed to go, with Israel insisting that some go to Gazoo or be exiled overseas, and not return to their homes in the West Bank.