RAMALLAH: Officials from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have announced that they will release prisoners in order to start off reconciliation talks on a positive foot. Hamas announced over the weekend that political prisoners associated with Fatah are set to be freed in the near future. A Hamas spokesman said they will be granted amnesty upon their release. Several Hamas prisoners held for political reasons, mostly related the 2007 Hamas-Fatah conflict that divided the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, will be released in the coming days, Ma'an News Agency said. National reconciliation talks in the past have uniformly failed. However, this week a delegation of Fatah representatives are supposed to visit Gaza. In the wake of Israel's massive 8 day military offensive against the Gaza Strip, in which over 160 Palestinians were killed and the injured exceeded a thousand, there is a strong street level push for unity between Fatah and Hamas. During Israel's offensive on Gaza, widespread solidarity demonstrations swept the occupied West Bank, producing clashes with Israeli occupation forces in villages, refugee camps, cities, and at checkpoints across the territory. Present at moment demonstrations was the call for national unity. “One, one homeland, Gaza and the West Bank!" chanted demonstrators as they marched through Ramallah every day until the ceasefire was reached. On Friday, Israeli occupation forces arrested Hamas and PFLP parliamentarians across the West Bank, citing security concerns and the need to enforce calm after the tenuous Egyptian-brokered ceasefire was reached on Wednesday.
