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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will hold a closed meeting July 16 in Jerusalem. Ahead of the meeting, the Israeli government has taken extraordinary steps in implementing an amnesty plan for 178 Fatah-affiliated militants in the West Bank and looks set to release some 250 Palestinian prisoners -- most of whom are linked to Fatah -- from jail by the end of this week. This deal would effectively clear 75 percent of wanted militants from Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade from the Israeli Shin Bet's most wanted list, as long as they cut their militant ties and turn in their guns.
And as if that were not enough, Israel has agreed to facilitate a meeting that Abbas wants with outlawed veterans of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. The Olmert government granted a group of wanted exiled leaders special permission to enter the West Bank for a limited period of time for the meeting. The most controversial figure in this group is Nayef Hawatmeh, notorious for masterminding a 1974 attack in the northern town of Maalot that killed 22 Israeli schoolchildren.
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