Israel releases over 250 Palestinian prisoners News
Israel releases over 250 Palestinian prisoners

[JURIST] Israel released 255 Palestinian prisoners [release list, XLS] Friday who belong to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement [BBC backgrounder] and other minor factions. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs [official website] said that the prisoners were not directly involved [press release] in the killing or wounding of Israelis, and that all released prisoners were required to sign a pledge not to participate in violence against Israel.

The prisoners were released as a gesture of goodwill in an effort to strengthen the moderate Fatah against the more-hardline Hamas [BBC backgrounder], which violently took over the Gaza Strip [BBC backgrounder] in June. Palestinian infighting between the Islamist-Hamas and the secular-Fatah has established two parallel Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas, which was elected as the ruling party [JURIST report] of the Palestinian Authority in early 2006, has refused to distance itself from terrorism or recognize Israel's right to exist as a nation-state, resulting in increased ostracism by the United States, the European Union, and Israel. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

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The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

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