Asharq: Israel agrees to accept 20,000 refugees over ten years

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have produced an agreement regarding the return of refugees, whereby up the Palestinians would give up the "right of return," while the Israelis would allow up to 20,000 Palestinians who left their homes in 1948 to return over the next ten years, a Qatari newspaper reported on Saturday. According to the report printed in Asharq Al-Awsat, Palestinian sources which were described as, "credible" told the paper that the agreement was just one of 12 clauses which form a joint document that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hope to present before the end of the year, and potentially even before the US presidential elections.