JERUSALEM, Feb 3: Top Israeli ministers approved on Thursday a pullback from five West Bank cities and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The gestures were approved just five days before Tuesday's key summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in what is set to be the most high-profile meeting between the two sides in more than four years.
"The ministers approved in principle an Israeli withdrawal from five West Bank cities," a senior Israel source said, without giving a start date for the process. Media reports said Israeli troops would withdraw from the city of Jericho "within the coming days".
Ministers also approved the release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the source added, without giving a number. Senior sources quoted by Israeli army radio suggested 900 prisoners would be released, with 500 to be freed after next week's summit, and another 400 in the coming three months.
Israel and the Palestinians were widely expected to draw a line under more than four years of deadly violence at the summit, which is to take place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
Mr Abbas said on Thursday he expected Israel to formally announce that it would match an unofficial Palestinian cease fire, which has seen a rare period of calm descend on the region. "We have decreed a cease fire and the Israeli side must announce the same thing," Mr Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.
Tuesday's summit will be the first time Israeli and Palestinian leaders have met since 2000, and is the clearest indication yet of tangible progress in the peace process, which ran aground after the launch of the internationally drafted roadmap in 2003.
The process is also expected to receive a boost from next week's visit by new US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after President George Bush vowed in his State of the Union speech to push for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres predicted there would be a joint declaration about ending the violence, which has claimed more than 4,700 lives since the Palestinian uprising broke out in Sept 2000. -AFP
