The 26 Palestinian prisoners who are set to be released to jumpstart Israel’s peace talks are terrorists and murderers who should stay behind bars, family members of the inmates’ victims said.
“There will never be peace here,” said one man whose father was killed by one of the inmates, Ynet News reported. “It is very difficult to cope.”
Israel just released a list of prisoners who would be released as a condition of peace talks with Palestinians. But family members say: Why?
“I feel horrible,” said Bella Beker, whose husband Moshe Beker was murdered in 1994. His killer, Barbakh Faiz Rajab Madhat, is one of the 26 selected for release this Wednesday. “It feels terrible to release the killer. I would like to know — if to the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] such a disaster happened, and they released the killer, how he would feel. And for what? For peace?”
Ms. Beker’s daughter, Tzvia Dahan, chimed in similarly, Ynet News reported, and said the murder of her father caused “great” pain. And now, it seems, those responsible are being rewarded.
“They killed him in the orchard” where he worked, she said, “and now they get rewarded.”
Also among the list of 26: Abu Moussa Salam Ali Atiya, who murdered Holocaust survivor Isaac Rotenberg in 1994. His son told Ynet News that family members are angry and hurt at the Israeli Ministerial Committee’s decision to release him over their objections.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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