Netanyahu had secured support on the issue from 10 ministers of his cabinet ahead of the vote, Haaretz reported.
The release of prisoners is interlinked with the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which are to start in Washington on Tuesday.
“The goal here is to augment the political dialogue with confidence-building measures,” an unidentified Israeli official told the New York Times.
“This is the biggest achievement we will have had this year,” an anonymous Palestinian official involved in negotiations told the NYT.
Netanyahu will have to use all of the persuasion he’s got to make Israelis believe that what he’s doing is right and serves the common cause. Families of Israelis killed by Palestinians over the last 30 years are not likely to take it lightly.
In their turn, Palestinians consider their compatriots convicted before the 1993, when the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, as political prisoners that should have been released long time ago.