Shalit mediator visits Gaza for talks on prisoner swap
The German mediator trying to secure the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit has visited Gaza, the Islamic movement Hamas says.
The move comes amid speculation that efforts to agree a prisoner swap deal may be
making progress.
Israel’s security cabinet met several times on the issue earlier this week, and the
mediator is said to have taken Israel’s latest proposal to Hamas.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group would need a few days to study it.
“We have received the Israeli response from the German mediator and it will be
studied within a few days,” a Hamas official told the news agency.
The official added that a delegation from Gaza would visit Damascus, where the
Palestinian movement’s exiled leadership are based, for further discussions.
Sgt Shalit, 23, was captured in a raid into southern Israel by Palestinian militants
from Gaza, in 2006.
Hamas want hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, including senior militant leaders
that Israel holds responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israeli citizens, to be
freed in exchange for Sgt Shalit’s release.
Israel’s state prosecutor’s office said last month that the government was
considering releasing 450 prisoners that Hamas had asked for, and another 530 to be
selected by Israel under the deal under discussion.
Hamas’s list of demanded prisoners is said to include Marwan Bargouthi, a popular
leader from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, who is
widely seen as a possible successor to Mr Abbas and a figure who might bridge the
divisions between Fatah and Hamas, the main Palestinian political faction.
Israel’s seven-person security cabinet held intensive meetings on Sunday and Monday
to discuss the issue.
On Tuesday, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israeli leaders faced the obligation to
bring Sgt Shalit home, “but not at any price”.
In November members of Hamas went to Cairo to discuss the prisoner swap with
mediators there.
President Shimon Peres announced last month that “real progress” had been made, but
that details had to be “kept behind the scenes”.
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