Israeli Anger Over Prisoner Release Threatens To Cloud John Kerry's Visit!

The release of Palestinian prisoners has set off an Israeli backlash ahead of John Kerry's 10th visit to the Holy Land in the past 10 months

The release of long-term Palestinian prisoners jailed for "terrorism" triggered an angry Israeli backlash on Tuesday that threatened to overshadow the expected arrival of John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to begin talks on a proposed "framework" peace agreement.

Twenty-six inmates incarcerated since before the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords were given a hero's welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah after being freed from Israeli custody early on Tuesday.

They were the third of four batches of prisoners Israel agreed to release last July, as part of the price for re-starting long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

But scenes of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, kissing and hugging each prisoner after their release provoked revulsion in Israel, with critics complaining that most of the inmates had been convicted of murdering Israelis.

"Each one of us sees this and we ask ourselves, can we make peace with these people, who welcome murderers with flowers as if they were heroes," Silvan Shalom, the Israeli regional development minister, told Israel Radio.

"If these are their heroes, if this is what they show the young generation, that these loathsome murderers are heroes, can we make peace with them? What kind of education is this for children?"

Another 26 prisoners are expected to be freed in the coming months as part of the talks process, making a total of 104. Mr Abbas told crowds outside the Mukatta, his presidential headquarters, that it had been agreed to set another 104 free at a later date.

The latest release was the pretext for an outbreak of so-called "price tag" vandalism by radical Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Graffiti bearing the slogans, "there will be war for Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]", "Blood will be spilled for Judea and Samaria! A lot of blood" and "regards to John Kerry" was sprayed on the walls of a house in Jilazoun, a Palestinian village near the settlement of Beit El.

Israeli police were treating the incident as a suspected Right-wing nationalist crime. "Price tag" attacks - often involving spray-painted hate slogans and car-burnings - have become common in recent times, especially after perceived concessions by Israel or attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

Israel is expected to announce 1,400 new settlement homes, including 600 in the East Jerusalem development of Givat Hamatos, in a step designed to assuage Right-wing anger over the prisoner releases. The move, in line with similar announcements following earlier releases, would represent a defiant snub to European pressure aimed at dissuading Israel from trying to dilute the effect of freeing prisoners with new settlement announcements. Past announcements have angered the Palestinians into threatening to abandon the peace talks.

Mr Kerry is expected present the broad outline of his vision for a peace agreement when he arrives in Holy Land on Wednesday in his 10th visit since last March. He is trying to persuade Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas to reach a "framework agreement" by the end of January that would serve as a guide to settling the historic conflict's core issues.

Separately, 27 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israel's security forces in 2013, a three-fold increase on the previous year, B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group reported.

It was the highest number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank in five years and the first time in a decade that more were killed there than in the Gaza Strip, where a total of nine Palestinian fatalities were recorded. Six Israelis - three civilians and three soldiers - were killed by Palestinians in 2013, the same figure as last year.