The spokesman for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Nabil Abu Rudeina, said today that the release of all compatriots imprisoned in Israeli jails is a priority for the government.
Speaking to Palestine Radio, Rudeina responded to Israeli press reports that PNA President Mahmoud Abbas had made such a request.
According to these media, during a meeting last December with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Abbas demanded the release of 25 members of the governmental Fatah movement, several of whom have been behind bars since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The issue of the prisoners is a top priority for the president, who demands their release in all his meetings, whether with the Israelis, the Americans, or with any international delegation, Rudeina stressed.
He denounced plans to manipulate and denigrate the Palestinian cause while condemning the recent declarations of the Prime Minister of the neighboring country, Naftali Bennett, who refused to resume the peace dialogue and support the creation of a Palestinian State.
According to official figures, some 4,500 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli penitentiary facilities, half a thousand of them under the administrative detention policy.
Criticized by the UN and human rights groups, so-called administrative detention is used by Tel Aviv to arrest Palestinians for renewable intervals usually ranging from three to six months on the basis of undisclosed evidence that even the defendant’s lawyer is barred from seeing it.
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