Thousands celebrate freed Palestinian prisoners

GAZA CITY, Oct 19 (AP): Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians celebrated the homecoming Tuesday of hundreds of prisoners exchanged for an Israeli soldier, with the crowd and a freed Hamas leader exhorting militants to seize more soldiers for future swaps. Hamas, which had negotiated the release, turned the celebration into a show of strength for the Islamic militant movement, which had seized Gaza from its moderate rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007. The joyous crowd crammed into a grassy lot, where a huge stage was set up, decorated with a mural depicting the 2006 capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit at an army base near the Gaza border. The prisoners - more than 300 out of 477 freed Tuesday were sent to Gaza - sat in rows of chairs on the stage. Many in the crowd described long years of waiting to see their loved ones. "I will kiss his head when he returns," said Huriya Awadallah, 75, of her 45-year-old brother who had spent 20 years in prison for killing an Israeli. "I am like his mother. I raised him," said the woman who pinned a photograph of her brother, Eid Musleh, to her dress. Several thousand Palestinian prisoners remain in Israeli jails, convicted of offenses ranging from masterminding deadly attacks to throwing stones. Many Palestinians see them as fighters for independence.