By DPA    
The Israeli government has granted official residency status to 3,500 Palestinians who in the last decade entered the West Bank on Israeli-issued visitors' visas but never left, Palestinian officials said Wednesday.
Israel however did not grant official residency status to another 1,500 Palestinians residing illegally in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
"After Israel had declared the Gaza Strip as a hostile entity, it decided to postpone any decision regarding its [illegal] citizens," Hussein al-Sheikh, the head of the Palestinian Authority Civil Affairs Department in Ramallah, told Voice of Palestine Radio.  
The move is an Israeli response to a request made by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas during one of his recent meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of the U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference scheduled to take place in Annapolis, Maryland next month.
The Palestinians demand that Israel grant permanent residency status to all Palestinians who entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1993 interim Oslo peace accords and have since stayed illegally. There are currently some 55,000 Palestinians who fall under this category.
Many who have family in the Palestinian Authority or have since married have applied for official documents on the basis of "family reunification," but Israel suspended the option for family reunification with the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000.
Sheikh said Abbas personally raised the issue of the illegal residents during his meetings with Olmert over the past months. The issue is a top priority for Abbas because it affects many Palestinians and their relatives, he said.
The decision is significant for the Palestinians since more than 20,000 Palestinians who visited the West Bank on tourist visas in recent years have been living in hiding from Israeli forces since their travel permits expired.
Granting the illegal immigrants residency rights would allow them greater freedom of movement, access to such benefits as health and education as well as allowing them to apply for official documents for their children.
Israel had agreed to consider their applications but in small groups of 5,000 each, Sheikh said.
Under the Oslo accords, Israel controls the Palestinian population registry, meaning all identity cards, birth certificates and travel documents for residents of the Palestinian Authority are issued by Israel.
Other Israeli gestures have included the release of more than 300 Palestinian prisoners - out of 11,000 - from Israeli jails and granting amnesty to about 200 Palestinian militants affiliated with Fatah in the West Bank
Original Source