Peace Agreement To Be Voted on by National Referendum
Image by Getty Images
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet convened Sunday to vote on his decision to release of 104 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails since before the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Netanyahu late Saturday began calling up Likud ministers who are leaning toward voting against the move, in an effort to convince them otherwise. “There is no alternative. It is also difficult for me,” Netanyahu told one of the ministers. “We must renew the peace process.”
The prisoner release will take place in four stages, with the first group being released over the next few weeks following a meeting between Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat in Washington on Tuesday. The last release will take place in about nine months. The Israeli Arab prisoners included in the plan will be released only in the fourth phase of process.
The prisoners the Palestinians are demanding to release include Mohammed Tus, a former member of a South Hebron terror cell who murdered five Israelis; Mahmoud Harbish and Jomaa Adham, who threw a fire bomb at a bus in 1988, killing Israeli Rachel Weiss and her three young children and David Delarossa, the soldier who tried to rescue them from the burning vehicle; as well as, Gamil Hassan Abu Sarur and Hassan Abbed Abu Sarur, who took part in the murder of Shin Bet officer Haim Nahmani.
Read more at Haaretz.com.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
-
Fast Forward ADL upgrades 19 colleges’ antisemitism ‘grades,’ as some enact new policies
-
Fast Forward Brown U leaders praise Jewish life on campus as Trump expected to slash $500M
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ADL upgrades 19 colleges’ antisemitism ‘grades,’ as some enact new policies
-
Fast Forward Brown U leaders praise Jewish life on campus as Trump expected to slash $500M
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.