A group of 26 Palestinian militants imprisoned for fatal attacks against Israelis was preparing to be released at midnight (2200 GMT) Tuesday, another confidence-building measure between the sides as they continue peace talks, dpa reported.
The 26 would undergo medical examinations and identity checks and meet with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross at the Ofer military base - between Jerusalem and the central West Bank city of Ramallah - where authorities had gathered them since Monday, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service (IPS) told dpa.
Five of them would be bused from there to Gaza, while the other 21 would be taken to a military crossing into Palestinian-controlled territory outside Ramallah.
They are all Palestinians who stabbed, shot, axed or strangled to death Israelis in attacks in the West Bank and Israel in the 1980s and 1990s.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is freeing them as part of a revival of long-stalled peace negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In all, he has promised to release 104 in four stages over the coming months, but rejected a demand to freeze Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The first 26 were released in August.
A welcome ceremony was planned at Abbas' headquarters in Ramallah.
In a refugee camp in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, relatives were preparing for the return of Issa Abed Rabbo, the longest-serving prisoner up for release, in jail for 29 years. He was convicted of killing an Israeli couple as they were hiking in a riverbed outside Jerusalem in 1984. He tied them up and shot them at short range.
"I couldn't believe it when I heard that my son would be released. I jumped out of bed, even though I can't walk," said his mother, Ammouneh, 75.
"Then I prayed to thank God for allowing me to see my son free and to able to hold and kiss him before I die," she told reporters at her house, decorated with Palestinian flags and portraits of the man.
Hundreds of Israeli relatives of victims of the attackers earlier protested outside the Ofer military base against the release.
"I am ashamed that I have to be here and shout in my father's name, who is begging from his grave not to release his murderer," said Meirav Osher, whose father was stabbed to death by his Palestinian worker in a Jordan Valley settlement in 1991.
Right-wing members of Netanyahu's government, including Economy Minister Naftali Bennett of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, have strongly and publicly criticized the premier for agreeing to free the prisoner.