Jerusalem ? Israel will grant residency permits to 5,000 Palestinians who have been living in the West Bank on expired visitors’ visas, officials said Wednesday, in a new gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The decision means an easier life for some of the 20,000 Palestinians who entered the West Bank as visitors during the heady years of peacemaking in the 1990s but saw their visitors’ permits expire. That left them with a difficult choice: leave the West Bank with no guarantee of returning, or remain illegally under constant fear of arrest.

The residency permit gesture is meant to boost Abbas in his struggle with the Islamic Hamas ahead of a U.S.-sponsored Mideast conference next month.