Israel issues prisoner-release list as missiles hit near Gaza camp

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – An Israeli aircraft fired missiles near a Palestinian refugee camp on Monday, destroying two rocket launchers and wounding three people, while Israel published a list of 400 Palestinian prisoners to be released later this week.

The prisoner release, which was set for Thursday, is part of the February cease-fire agreement but has been repeatedly delayed.

Israel’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to meet with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas soon in Jerusalem to coordinate security in the Gaza Strip after Israel has withdrawn from the area.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom gave no date for the Sharon-Abbas meeting, which would be the first since the two met at a Feb. 8 summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh that produced the truce.

“We are trying very hard to coordinate (security issues) with the Palestinians in order to make sure” the Gaza areas Israel leaves behind do not come under the sway of Hamas or “other extremist organizations,” Shalom told reporters outside a European-Mideast conference in Luxembourg.

Israel plans to begin withdrawing from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in mid-August.

The army said it carried out the air strike as militants were preparing to fire rockets or mortar shells from northern Gaza. It said two launchers were destroyed but that militants preparing the attack left the scene before the strike.

Hospital officials said a man and two women, apparently bystanders, were wounded by shrapnel.

The violent Islamic Jihad said one of its cells, which minutes earlier had fired three rockets at an Israeli village just outside Gaza, was the target of the air strike.

During more than four years of fighting, Israel carried out dozens of air strikes on militant targets in Gaza. But violence has dropped since the cease-fire went into effect, although fighting has begun to flare up in recent weeks.

Israel published a list of the Palestinian prisoners to be released on Thursday, which included 93 detainees serving terms of five years or more on charges including attempted shootings, the preparation of explosives and assisting attempted murder.

In the past, Israel has refused to release prisoners who have not served two-thirds of their terms, but the list published Monday included several who have completed only a small fraction of their sentences.