Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad was on Sunday due to meet with senior Israeli officials after secretly holding talks Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week, an official at his office told AFP. During the meeting, which other Palestinian officials said could include the head of Israel's Shin Beth security agency Yuval Diskin, Fayyad will ask to remove hundreds of its checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, the official said.
According to the sources, he will also ask for a full-time opening of all crossing points into the Gaza Strip, under control of Hamas for more than three weeks, and for withdrawal of Israeli forces in the West Bank to allow the deployment of Palestinian security services. Fayyad will also discuss which Palestinian prisoners will be included among the 250 that the Israeli cabinet on Sunday agreed to free as part of a goodwill gesture to president Mahmud Abbas.
