Israel frees speaker of Palestinian parliament (Roundup)

Jun 23, 2009, 13:48 GMT

Ramallah / Tel Aviv - Israel released early Tuesday afternoon the speaker of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council who had been held in an Israeli jail for 34 months, his family said.

Aziz Dweik was detained in a wave of arrests of Hamas legislators in August 2006, after Hamas and two other armed groups snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit during a cross-border raid launched from the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli military court decided Wednesday last week to release him. According to Israel Radio, a military appeals court rejected the army's request to keep him in prison until he served out his three-year sentence.

Dweik's son Husam said his father was freed after a bail of 5,000 Israeli shekels (1,250 US dollars) had been paid.

Dweik was set free at an Israeli army checkpoint near Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank, where he was greeted by local Hamas leaders, and also contacted by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

He then traveled to Ramallah, where he was reunited with his family.

Hamas Gaza spokesman Sami Abu Zuhkri said the release of the parliament speaker would boost Hamas, which is locked in political rivalry with Abbas' Fatah movement, although efforts are underway to effect a reconciliation between the two groups.

Zukhri also denied that Dweik's release was connected to efforts to secure the freedom of Gilad Shalit, who will mark his third year of his captivity Thursday.

On Tuesday morning hundreds of Israelis converged on the border crossing points between the Gaza Strip and Israel to demand the release of Shalit.

The protestors blocked traffic into the Strip, preventing trucks from delivering goods into the salient.

The Jerusalem Post daily, however, reported that the activists were prepared to allow humanitarian supplies, including flour, fertilizer and medicine, to enter the enclave.

'At the moment, today is a warning, we are blocking all the crossings ... But this is just a warning. In the future we will take more action that will include the prisons. We won't allow visits to prisoners,' Dudu Gilboa, one of the protestors, told Israel Army Radio.

Shalit has been held virtually incommunicado since he was snatched on June 25, 2006. Former US president Jimmy Carter, who met Hamas leaders in Gaza last week, handed them a letter for Shalit from the soldier's family.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has not been allowed to visit the captive, demanded Thursday that Hamas allow Shalit regular contact with his family, saying the letter Carter handed over 'cannot replace the regular and unconditional contacts with his family that Gilad Shalit is entitled to under international humanitarian law.'

Negotiations over his release have so far been unsuccessful, although in recent days reports have surfaced of serious progress in the negotiations.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who met Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak in Cairo Sunday, denied any talks were taking place and said a new Israeli negotiating team was examining ways of moving the talks forward.

'This issue is best dealt with away from media, to increase the chances of concluding a deal and setting him free,' he said.

Hamas is demanding Israel free 1,400 prisoners from its jails in return for Shalit's release, but negotiations have stalled over 450 prisoners on the list who were jailed for killing Israelis.