Israel begins releasing prisoners

JERUSALEM - Israel began releasing about 430 Palestinian prisoners on Monday in a bid to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas after a U.S.-sponsored conference last week on Palestinian statehood, Israeli officials said.

The prisoners, most of whom belong to Abbas's secular Fatah movement, were bussed from a desert prison to Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, a Prisons Service spokeswoman said.

Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert launched formal peace talks at the U.S.-hosted Annapolis, Maryland, conference, and the prisoner release is meant to strengthen the Palestinian leader against Hamas Islamists who seized the Gaza Strip in June.

Hamas has rejected the peace moves with Israel.

The issue of prisoners is highly emotive for Palestinians, who see their nearly 11,000 brethren held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation. Many Israelis fear that such amnesties encourage Palestinian militants to strike again.