GAZA, June 2: Palestinian militants welcomed Jamil al-Aqra back to the fold on his release with hundreds of other prisoners freed by Israel on Thursday, carrying him off on their shoulders and firing into the air.

Israel freed 400 Palestinians in a gesture to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, giving rise to emotional reunions with relatives and comrades near Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank and Gaza where handovers took place.

Ten armed members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas’s Fatah movement, mobbed al-Aqra as he got off a bus at Gaza’s Erez crossing with Israel after serving two and half years of a four-year sentence for militant activity.

“Our happiness will never be complete until all (8,000) of our brothers suffering in Israeli jails are freed, especially those in prison for more than 20 or 30 years,” al-Zaqra, 38, said, echoing a collective grievance of Palestinians over jailed compatriots they see as heroes fighting occupation.—-Reuters