Abbas will hold talks later Saturday with Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders on a permanent ceasefire with Israel. (Reuters)

GAZA CITY, February 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A few hours before a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and resistance factions on a permanent ceasefire with Israel, Palestinian officials said Saturday, February 12, that Israel has given the green light for the return of Palestinian detainees.

“Israel has agreed to allow the return of all Palestinians deported to Gaza and Europe,” Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erakat was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He said a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee on the deportees would meet within two or three days to finalize details of the exiles' return.

Emerging from a meeting with Abbas in Gaza City, Samed Mustafa, a deportee, said the newly elected leader had promised all deportees they would be home “within two weeks”.

Over the past two years, Israel has deported 56 West Bank residents to the Gaza Strip allegedly on security grounds.

Another 13 Palestinians, who were besieged inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity in April 2002, were deported to Europe.

The deportation was part of a deal worked out with the United States and European Union to end Israel's five-week siege of the church and tightened security measures imposed on the holy city.

But the deportation drew criticism from many Palestinians, who felt the deportees were punished only for resisting Israeli continued aggressions against Palestinian-ruled areas.

Erekat said the decision was taken before Tuesday's landmark Middle East peace summit which was hosted by Egypt.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas separately pledged during the day-long summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh to observe a ceasefire.

A senior Israeli source confirmed that an agreement had been reached on the deportee but could not say exactly when they would return.

“This was agreed as part of the security understandings reached before the summit which said (Israel's) pursuit of the deported and the most wanted would be frozen,” he told AFP.

“It is a conditional return, a sort of probation system where they must agree to abide by certain conditions, which include submitting themselves to the supervision of the Palestinian security services, not returning to terror, and remaining in their home towns,” he maintained.

The Israeli official threatened that any violation of the preconditions would mean “they will be actively pursued, if not by the Palestinian security forces, then by us”.

The Palestinian leader was to hold talks later Saturday with leaders of the main resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on a permanent ceasefire with Israel.

Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, fired at least 46 mortars and rockets at Jewish settlements in the southern Gaza Strip Thursday.

The group said the bombing came in “response to the Zionist crimes which are continuing and have cost the lives of Fathi Abu Jazar and Hassan Al-Alami,” referring to two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces a day earlier.

Abbas immediately sacked three senior security officials for failing to prevent the attacks on the Jewish settlements.

Hamas, as well as most Palestinian resistance factions, have made a ceasefire conditional on both an end to incessant Israeli military aggressions against the Palestinian people and the release of prisoners.

“We initiated calm to allow Abbas to achieve national demands and conditions (by negotiation) but this does not mean we will stand handcuffed in the face of Zionist crimes,” Hamas spokesman Mushir Al-Masri said.