Israel could breach yet another agreement

Hundreds of Palestinian families are waiting eagerly for the second phase of the Shalit prisoner swap deal, which is expected to take place on December 18. The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) had started to prepare the list of Palestinian prisoners who will release 550 Palestinian prisoners, according to the deal. Israeli sources confirmed that the list doesn’t include any security prisoners who are known in Israel as having 'blood on their hands', but it is limited to the criminal prisoners or security prisoners who are about to finish their sentence in prison. The deal is fully coordinated by the Egyptian leadership. Meanwhile, Palestinians are worried that Israel’s list doesn’t include the sick and elderly prisoners, as well as  female prisoners. Palestinian Authority Minister of Detainee Affairs Issa Qaraqe said “we have appealed to Egyptians to interfere to release female prisoners, sick, elderly, and those with high sentences and who have spent long years in Israeli prisons.” He added “We have demanded to make these as standards of the second phase of the deal, as no one knows what the Israeli’s list includes, because Israeli intelligence is the only one who decides who to be released and who not to be released.” Moreover, Hamas senior officials have confirmed that there is an item in the deal that states literally, the second phase includes 550 security prisoners, and will be completed within two months from the first phase, and the deadline for the completion of the deal was for December 18 or 19. There are 53 Palestinian female prisoners who spent more than twenty years in Israeli prisons, and about 124 prisoners were imprisoned before the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994,” Qaraqe explained. Shalit deal includes two phases, the first one included 477 prisoners, which took place on October, and the second phase includes 550 prisoners. On the other hand, Israel Radio quoted a security source as “the Israeli General Security Service began to collect the names of Palestinian prisoners planned to release them upon to Shalit deal.” The Arab Israeli MP Ibrahim Sarsour told AFP “We have started to put some standard, and appealed to Egypt to interfere to release 20 Arab Israeli prisoners, whom are imprisoned from 20 to 30 years, in addition to female prisoners.” Sarsour explained that the standard of the second phase requires that Israel determines the names of prisoners to be released while Palestinians don't have the right to name any of them. He added “We have about 140 political prisoners in Israel from the Arab community,” pointing out that “Israel refuses to release Arab israeli secutriy prisonners in the deal because they are Israeli citizens.” The only deal that included prisoners from Israeli Arabs was in the Secretary General deal in 1985, besides five prisoners in the first phase of Shalit deal. Last October, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced a deal with the former Israeli government headed by Ehud Olmert to release 1027 prisoners which wasn't link to the Shalit exchange, saying “we will request the release of senior Fatah officials, such as Marwan Barghouti, and Ahmed Saadat.” It's worth pointing out that after the completion of the second phase of the Shalit deal, the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails will still total 5000.