Israel Releases 3 Jewish Extremists : Terrorism: The prisoners served less than 7 years for killings and injuries in their attacks on Palestinians in the 1980s.

JERUSALEM —  Three Jewish West Bank settlers were freed from prison today after serving less than seven years of a life term for killing three Palestinian students and maiming two West Bank mayors in the early 1980s.

Scores of chanting and dancing settlers carried the three on their shoulders out of Maasiyahu Prison in the central Israeli town of Ramle.

Dozens of Israeli jurists and lawmakers outside the prison protested the release, saying it will encourage Jewish extremism.

In the occupied Gaza Strip, meanwhile, troops shot and killed a Palestinian today after he stabbed three soldiers patrolling the Shati refugee camp, the army said.

Palestinian reports identified the slain man as Ala Abdul-Latif Obeid, 30, from Shati, whose wedding eve this was. Doctors at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital said he was shot at least 30 times.

Two of the soldiers who were stabbed were hospitalized in fair condition and the third was treated for a minor wound and released.

The three settlers freed today were the last of a 28-member cell called the Jewish Underground to be released from prison.

The group carried out bombings and attacks aimed at Palestinian officials, mosques and the Islamic College in the occupied West Bank.

Menahem Livni, the leader of the group who was released today, said he was not sorry for what he did, though officials who reduced the sentences had said the three settlers expressed remorse.

“The use of the word regret in this case is childish,” Livni told Israel radio after he left prison with the two other convicted settlers, Shaul Nir and Uzi Sharbav.

In Israel, a life sentence usually means the inmate must serve at least 20 years. There is no death penalty, except for Nazi war crimes.

“This is a message of contempt for human life, of making a difference between one type of life and another, and it violates the basic tenet of equality before the law,” said Yitzhak Zamir, a former Israeli attorney general protesting outside the prison.

Livni was convicted of masterminding three June, 1980, car bombings that maimed two West Bank mayors, Bassam Shaka of Nablus and Karim Halaf of Ramallah, and blinded an Israeli police explosives expert.

Shaka, wheelchair-bound after losing his legs in the explosion, said the early release was part of Israeli government policy to “encourage extremists to act against Palestinians.”

Nir and Sharbav were found guilty of breaking into the Islamic College in the West Bank town of Hebron in July, 1983, throwing a hand grenade and firing wildly. Three students were killed and 30 wounded in the attack.