JERUSALEM: Israel will free 87 Palestinian prisoners, mostly from president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, on Monday following a cabinet decision to make the release as a Ramazan goodwill gesture, officials said.

“We will free 87 prisoners, the majority of them from Fatah,” a spokesman for the prisons authority said.

“Among them, 29 come from the Gaza Strip and the rest from Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank),” he said. The Israeli cabinet approved the release a week ago after assurances given by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Abbas during their regular talks ahead of an international peace conference expected in November. Israel — which is currently detaining more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners — has been aiming to boost Abbas in his powerbase in the West Bank.—AFP