No deal without all Palestinian territories, Abbas says (Extra)

Dec 15, 2008, 11:56 GMT

Ramallah - Welcoming freed prisoners back to Ramallah Monday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians would not accept any peace deal with Israel that 'will not give us back all the Palestinian territories, particularly Jerusalem.'

'I promise you that the refugee issue will remain as one of our priorities until their suffering ends,' he added.

The borders of the future Palestinian state, and the fate of the Palestinian refugees and their descendents from the 1948-49 Arab- Israeli war, are two of the key issues being negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority has rejected an Israeli offer to withdraw from more than 93 per cent of the occupied West Bank. Israel, for its part, refuses to allow all the refugees back into what is now sovereign Israel, saying they should return to the future Palestinian state.

In his speech the prisoners freed Monday morning from Israeli jails, Abbas said that Palestinian happiness would 'not be complete' until Israel freed all Palestinians it holds.

'We want all prisoners freed,' he said.

Israel freed 224 Palestinian militants from its prisons Monday morning as a goodwill gesture to Abbas for the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice.

Of those freed, 206 were transported to the Beitunia checkpoint near Ramallah, while another 18 headed to the Erez crossing with the Gaza Strip.

Abbas, alluding to the heavy blockade of the Strip imposed by Israel after the Islamic Hamas movement seized power there, said he hoped the prisoners heading for the salient 'will not leave one prion for another.'