Human rights center: Israel exploiting prisoners as bargaining chips

June 30, 2013 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

[ PIC 30/06/2013 - 11:56 AM ]


RAMALLAH, (PIC)– A Palestinian human rights center has doubted press reports that Israel was pondering the release of oldest serving Palestinian prisoners in return for reactivating negotiations with the PA.
The Palestine prisoners’ center for studies said in a statement on Sunday that the Israelis were exploiting the Palestinian prisoners’ issue as a bargaining chip to blackmail the PA politically and to pressure it into returning to the negotiations table.
It said that the release of Palestinian prisoners was tabled more than once before with no real progress achieved in any of those past attempts.
The center opined that the Israeli occupation authority was using the issue of those prisoners to extort certain political gains that would only serve its own interest.
The center advised the Palestinian masses not to be too optimistic about possible “goodwill gestures” by the IOA including the release of oldest serving prisoners.
The center ruled out the possibility of releasing all or even part of those prisoners, pointing to recent “serious” moves within the Knesset to restrict the premier’s jurisdiction of pardoning Palestinian prisoners.