Building and releasing

There are two stories dominating Monday’s Hebrew dailies — Israel’s announcement that it will market some 1,200 housing units over the Green Line and its approval of the release of 26 convicted Palestinian terrorists as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority.

“Building and releasing,” Maariv‘s main article, captures the two largest stories. A special ministerial panel met into the wee hours to determine the identity of 26 Palestinians to be released later this week, the paper reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu missed the meeting because he had undergone emergency hernia surgery the night before, but the head of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen, presented the other four ministers with a list of names, the article relates. At Netanyahu’s request, the first phase of prisoners included mainly elderly and sick people, ones that “are easier to digest” — 10 of the prisoners would have ended their jail time within three years.

“In total, in the four phases that will be carried out in an Israeli gesture to the Palestinian Authority as part of the agreement on restarting the [peace] talks, 104 terrorists will be released,” the daily reminds its readers.

Yedioth Ahronoth calls the prisoners set for release “the black list” and highlights the protests of the victims’ families. Among the 26, it notes, are Hamas members and murderers — not only prisoners convicted of aiding terrorists.

The bereaved families who object to the decision to release the convicted terrorists demonstrated their frustration Sunday in and next to the High Court of Justice. “Why do they need to be released?” Miriam Tobol, the mother of Lior, who was killed at the age of 17, shouted. “We won’t let this happen.”

Gila Molcho heckled the judges during the discussion while waving a picture of her brother, Ian Feinberg, who was killed in Gaza in 1993. “We’re not releasing prisoners, but  rather [we’re releasing] murderers. My brother was a lawyer who believed in justice. He deserves justice — and today I didn’t see justice.”

Israel Hayom highlights Housing Minister Uri Ariel’s announcement — which was simultaneous with the decision to release the 26 Palestinians — that his office will market some 1,200 housing units in East Jerusalem and large settlement blocs.

“No country in the world takes orders from other countries where it can build and where it can’t,” Ariel said in his statement. “We will continue to market the homes, and to build in the entire country… This is the right thing at the present time, for Zionism and for the economy.”

The tabloid reports that legislators from both the opposition and coalition spoke out against the plan. Finance Minister Yair Lapid called it “a double mistake,” saying it was both an insult to the US as Washington tried to push peace talks forward, and a wrong allocation of sources that should be invested in Israel’s middle class.

“Netanyahu needs to decide what government he’s heading,” Labor Party head Shelly Yachimovich said. The government is either striving to advance an agreement or working to prevent one — and cannot do both, she charged.

Other Jewish Home party members, including Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, and the Likud’s hawks voiced their support of Ariel’s announcement. “The question isn’t why we’re building in Jerusalem now, but why we didn’t build until now,” Bennett said, stating Israel would build in its capital without apologizing.

“As expected,” the paper writes, “the Palestinians are furious about the announcement.” It quotes Mohammad Shtayyeh, a Palestinian negotiator, who called it “a slap in the face of the Americans,” and a move that “proves Israel isn’t interested in peace.”

Haaretz’s headline says there’s a “fear of [a] crisis” in light of Israel’s decision to build beyond the Green Line.

According to the daily, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat, the PA’s top negotiator, sent messages to US Secretary of State John Kerry and mediator Martin Indyk in which they charged that Netanyahu had broken the agreements reached between the sides regarding settlement construction.

Like all the Hebrew dailies, Haaretz also dedicates room on its front page to the tragic death of a toddler in Beersheba, who locked himself in a car and died of heatstroke in the closed vehicle.

The papers note that while it’s the fourth such tragic death since the start of July, this time — unlike the previous three — the boy wasn’t forgotten by a negligent parent, but rather climbed into the unlocked car and then couldn’t open the door from the inside.

The owner of the vehicle, a woman who works at an absorption center in the city, found the child in the car, parked in the center’s lot, as she prepared to leave for the day. Medics were rushed to the scene and began resuscitation attempts, but the boy died on the way to the hospital.