Israel Claims Gaza Strip Uprising Over, Frees 474

Israel freed 474 Palestinian prisoners today and claimed that the occupied Gaza Strip, where a nearly 16-month-old Arab uprising began, had been pacified.

Promoted as a good-will gesture for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, the release coincided with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s arrival in Washington for tough talks with the U.S. government on Israel’s handling of the occupied territories.

At an airfield near Gaza City where 224 prisoners were freed, Brig. Gen. Aryeh Ramot, head of the Gaza civil administration, told reporters: “We have managed to pacify the area and bring it back to normality.”

But in clashes today, troops shot and seriously wounded a 14-year-old Palestinian in the head in Gaza City and wounded three schoolchildren with rubber bullets in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, hospitals reported.

Most of the prisoners freed were stone-throwers or minor activists, let out a few days before the expiration of short jail sentences. Among them were 50 youngsters aged between 12 and 16.

In the West Bank, 250 prisoners were released, including 106 political activists held without trial in harsh conditions at the controversial Ketziot prison camp in the Negev desert.

Security sources said almost twice that number had been proposed for release but the Shin Bet security service vetoed the freeing of many senior activists at the last moment.