Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering freeing up to 125 Palestinians jailed in the Jewish country by the end of 2012 as a "confidence-building gesture" aimed at engaging the Palestinian leadership for meeting on the peace process, local media reported Monday.

The move would be a bid to cajole Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to a meeting, according to several Israeli and foreign diplomats, the Haaretz daily reported Monday.

Isaac Molho, the prime minister's special envoy to the PNA met last week and held several telephone talks with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, in hopes of making headway on setting up a top-level meeting, the report claimed.

While not commenting on the report of the possible release, Israeli government officials told Xinhua that Netanyahu is trying to get the negotiations back on track.

"In recent months, the prime minister has made efforts ... encourage the restart of the talks; these efforts will continue," an official told Xinhua on Monday.

However, sources close to Netanyahu aver that he is willing to gradually release the prisoners by the end of the year.

Palestinians, for their part, demand the release of the 123 prisoners who were put in prison before the 1993 Oslo Accords.

In late June, Abbas put off a planned meeting with Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, citing scheduling conflicts. The postponement came after a series of public events protesting the visit, which was initially supposed to take place in Ramallah.

The two sides met several times in recent months in low-level Jordanian-hosted talks, although no progress was made at the sessions. Enditem