MIDDLE EAST: Israel's pledge to release 500 Palestinian prisoners will be made good next week, Israel's defence ministry said last night, hours after Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a ceasefire aimed at ending four years of violence.
"Israel will free 500 prisoners at the beginning of next week, although an exact date has not yet been confirmed," a ministry spokeswoman said.
Israel said last week it would release the first batch of 900 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after he and Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon declared an end to hostilities on both sides.
Mr Abbas and Mr Sharon declared a formal truce yesterday at their summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Mr Abbas said the Palestinians would stop violence while Mr Sharon called a halt to military operations at the highest-level meeting since near the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.
In his address to the summit, Mr Abbas said: "We have agreed with the prime minister to cease all acts of violence against Israelis and against Palestinians wherever they are. The calm that is currently prevailing in our territories signals the start of a new era, the start of a hopeful peace."
Mr Sharon, in Egypt for the first time as prime minister, said Israel "will cease all its military activities against all Palestinians anywhere".
He said: "We have an opportunity to turn our back on the bloody path imposed on us over the last four year."
But he cautioned that it was a "fragile opportunity" for peace, saying there were still "extremists" waiting to derail the process.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas immediately called the new deal into question, saying it would not be bound by Mr Abbas's commitment, but that they would continue to follow a de facto truce which he brokered about a fortnight ago.
Although Mr Abbas wants to co-opt the militants, rather than use force to rein them in, Israeli officials said they wanted the groups disarmed and dismantled, by force if necessary.
One official said yesterday that Israel did not want to see civil war within Palestinian society over the disarming of terrorist groups. "Israel won't go back to the conflict if Abbas hasn't disarmed Hamas but there will be no progress in the peace process," the official stated.
Differences also emerged between both sides on whether yesterday's initiative would immediately usher in negotiations on the internationally backed "road map" for a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, which both sides signed in a previous summit in the summer of 2003.
"What we have announced today is the implementation of the first phase of the roadmap ... and an essential step to give us a chance to put the peace process back on track," Mr Abbas said yesterday.
However, an Israeli spokesman stressed that the joint declarations were a "pre-road map step".
He indicated that talks on the road map would not take place until after Mr Sharon has carried out his planned pull-out of settlers and troops from the occupied Gaza Strip, scheduled for next July.
The spokesman said Israel was ready to co-ordinate with Mr Abbas on its Gaza plan if violence stopped and Palestinians reined in militants, as they are meant to under phase one of the road map.
However, phase one also states that Israel should freeze all settlement activity and withdraw from Palestinian areas it has occupied since the outbreak of the current intifada or uprising in September 2000.
Neither Mr Sharon nor Mr Abbas mentioned the issues of illegal Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories during their speeches yesterday.
In a sign that the talks went well, Egypt and Jordan, co-hosts of the summit, announced afterwards that they would return their ambassadors to Israel after a four-year absence, possibly within days.
Both sides yesterday pledged to hold follow-up meetings within weeks, with Mr Sharon also inviting Mr Abbas to visit his ranch in southern Israel.