The Israel Prison Service has begun the release of 26 Palestinian security prisoners from Ayalon Prison in Ramle at 9 p.m. on Tuesday as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority for resuming direct peace talks.
Outside Ayalon Prison, Israeli right wing activists protesting the release were stopped by police from trying to block the Israeli Prison Service vans carrying the prisoners.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the Erez crossing to greet the 14 prisoners that are released to the Gaza Strip. The remaining 12 will be taken to Ofer Prison and then transferred to Ramallah by way of the Beitunia checkpoint.
The prisoners were expected to arrive in their respective destinations of Gaza and the West Bank a little after midnight, according to Israeli media.
The 26 prisoners due to be released were among a total of 104 that Israel has agreed to free in four stages. The men were brought to Ayalon Prison from jails across Israel on Monday.
The families of the released prisoners were set to meet them in Ramallah's Muqata compound where the prisoners were expected to be greeted with an official reception and meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas before traveling to their homes.
An Israeli official said they would be taken in vehicles with sealed windows to prevent a repetition of scenes in which released Palestinian prisoners have stretched out their hands in V-for-Victory signs.
Authorities had planned to transport the group of men, arrested between 1985 and 2001, from jail in the dead of night in the early hours of Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, a three-judge High Court panel rejected an appeal against the prisoners' release by relatives of some of the Israelis they killed.
The court ruled the government had been within its purview to free them, although Chief Justice Asher Grunis wrote in the decision that "our hearts are with the families, who are victims of terror".
Hours after the release is completed, US-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians, which opened in Washington on July 30, were due to resume in Jerusalem, with further negotiations expected later in Jericho.
Abbas, who has vowed to seek freedom for all Palestinian prisoners, is set to gain by the prisoner releases, a highly charged issue in a society where thousands are held in Israeli custody.
"I think this is an important accomplishment, one that gives hope to the Palestinian people," Palestinian Minister of Prisoners Issa Qaraqe told Reuters.
Abbas's Islamist rival, Hamas, had limited praise for the prisoner release, although it also reiterated its objections to negotiating with Israel, whose existence it rejects.
Speaking during a tour of the North, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that the decision to release security prisoners was difficult for "the whole of the government, and for me personally. I know some of the terrorists. I arrested some of them when I was commander of the Judea and Samaria Division at the start of the 1990s. This is definitely a heavy feeling, and especially so for the bereaved families. My heart is with them."
The defense minister said a range of calculations led the prime minister and the government to release terrorists "with a heavy heart. If one of them goes back to terrorism, he will be returned to prison to carry out the punishment."