Palestinians say Israeli plan to free 400 prisoners 'not enough'

JERUSALEM -- Israel agreed yesterday to free the last 400 of 900 Palestinian prisoners whose release Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised during a summit in Egypt in February.

The move, approved by the Cabinet in an 18-to-3 vote, was delayed for weeks. Sharon told government ministers that freeing the prisoners now would help shore up Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, whose calls for an end to violence against Israel won praise from President Bush during the Palestinian leader's visit to Washington last week.

''Those who believe that the events of the coming months are liable to strengthen the forces of extremist terrorism certainly understand the need to strengthen the principal moderate element in the PA and honor our commitments," Sharon said in public comments before his weekly Cabinet meeting.

But Palestinian officials criticized the approved release as insufficient and said they should have been given a say in determining who would be freed. Palestinians contended that most of those freed in previous releases were near the end of their sentences and did not include prisoners who have spent more than a decade behind bars.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called on the Israelis to convene a joint committee established to set guidelines for the release of Palestinian prisoners.

''This is not enough," Erekat said. ''I'm sure there are 400 Palestinian families who are happy. But there are over 8,000 Palestinians still in prison."

None of the prisoners to be released were involved in violence against Israelis. Israel released 500 Palestinians in February. Sharon said three weeks ago that he was putting off further releases until the Palestinian leadership took a harder stance against the militants.

Abbas has refused to confront the fighters. Instead, he persuaded them to adopt a conditional cease-fire in March and is trying to coax them into joining the Palestinian political system.

In an interview yesterday, Abbas said he believed that the era of suicide bombings was over and that Palestinian culture was changing.

''We have started to deal with the culture of violence; we stopped the culture of violence," Abbas said on the ABC News program ''This Week."

In other developments, a pair of explosions in the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinian militants. In Khan Younis, a member of Hamas was killed by an apparent misfire as he prepared to launch an antitank rocket at Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli military sources and Palestinian witnesses and medical officials. In the second blast, in Gaza City, two fighters from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades died when their explosives detonated, witnesses said.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops near the West Bank town of Hebron fatally shot a Palestinian man who charged at soldiers with a knife, shouting threats to kill them, the army said.