Israel to release Palestinian prisoners as Rice visits

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel on Monday will release nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners, including two convicted murders, according to the government.

The prisoner release -- which will coincide with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- is a "confidence-building measure" and an effort to "energize the peace process" with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.

The Israeli Cabinet approved the release a week ago, after outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas agreed on a list of names.

The Israeli government stressed that the two convicted murders -- Mohammad Ibrahim Mahmoud Ali and Saeed Atba -- are not members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad and have already served long prison sentences.

The government also noted that "the opinion of the security forces [is] that the risk resulting from their release is low."

The 199 prisoners will be released Monday at 9:30 a.m. from Ofer Prison near Ramallah, West Bank -- where they were transferred following medical checks and meetings with Red Cross representatives. They will be taken from the prison to the nearby Beituniya checkpoint in the West Bank, where their families will await their release.

The decision to release the two convicted killers was denounced by Israeli victims' rights group, Almagor.

"The Israeli government is making a big mistake by releasing now terrorists, now with blood on their hands, the first time for many years," Almagor representative Meir Eindor said. "And the lesson to the region is ... that terror pay[s] off."

Eindor said the move will actually weaken Abbas as a partner in peace.

"You [are] now putting him in a situation that he is the same like Hamas -- both of them want terrorists back in the yard," Eindor said.

The director for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights also expressed dissatisfaction with Israel's decision, saying "it doesn't really mean anything."

"These 200, it takes Israel one week to ten days to re-arrest them," Raji Sourani said.

The prisoner release comes amid pressure by the United States for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to secure a peace deal before the end of the year. Olmert will step down as the Israeli leader next month after his Kadima party elects a new leader.

Israel has released hundreds of prisoners in the past in an effort to help bolster the stalled peace process. It freed more than 440 detainees in December -- all aligned with Abbas' Fatah party -- days after the U.S. sponsored Annapolis, Maryland, summit in which Olmert and Abbas agreed to work toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of 2008.

Rice is scheduled to leave for the Middle East on Sunday to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders about the status of the peace process.

Speaking to CNN shortly after the government approved the deal, Regev said the prisoner release is "an important confidence-building measure" that Israel hopes will show the Palestinian people that Abbas' government "can in fact deliver much more for their own people than the extremists, than the terrorists ever can."

All About Israel • Palestinian Politics • Ehud Olmert • Mahmoud Abbas