'I hope that I can see my son before I die'

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Widad al-Attaba has been glued to the television news since the landmark Israeli-Palestinian summit, hoping that the revival of the peace process will lead to a reunion with her son Saeed who has spent the past 28 years in prison.

Saeed al-Attaba, now aged 53, is the longest serving Palestinian in an Israeli jail having been sentenced to life in 1976 for his involvement in a series of deadly attacks on Israeli military bases as a member of the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

As part of a series of agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinians, some 900 Palestinian prisoners are soon to be released.

So far Israel has insisted that no one with "blood on their hands" will be freed but the Palestinian leadership is pushing hard for the release of all prisoners jailed since the Oslo accords.

In an interview published Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he recognized the "supreme importance" of the prisoner issue for the Palestinians.

The developments have led the aging Widad to start believing that she may get a chance to hug her son again.

"I am now 73 years old. I hope that I can see my son and hug him before I die," she said.

"Since the summit in Egypt I have been watching the news all the time. I haven't been able to sleep at night since I heard that prisoners will be released.

"I cannot stop thinking about my son and what I will do if I see him come through the door of the house." She has not visited her son at Ashkelon prison in southern Israel since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian uprising. In fact her only glimpse of him came when he appeared in an Al-Jazeera television report on detainees.

According to a report by the Palestinian prisoner affairs ministry, there are a total of 430 inmates who have spent more than 10 years in Israeli prisons.

The report, published earlier this month, said that 144 have spent more than 15 years inside while 17 have been jailed for more than 20 years.

A spokesman for the prisoners said on Wednesday that the Israeli authorities had handed them a list of 505 inmates who are set to be released in the next few days.

Most of those earmarked for release were coming to the end of their sentences and only 10 were not scheduled to go free before the end of next year, said Abdel-Razaq Farraj, who is among those due to go free from Ketziot prison in southern Israel after spending 34 months in administrative detention.

"I am happy but my happiness is not complete because I will be leaving a lot of my friends behind me in prison," he said by phone from the prison.

"Real happiness will only come when we have our freedom and an independent state" he added.

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