Sunday, May 18, 2008 - 13:00
AFP News Briefs ListHamas insists on prisoner swap for Shalit
The head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip on Sunday reiterated its demand for Israel to release 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
"Those who kidnapped Shalit maintain their demands on the number and identities of the Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit," Ismail Haniya said in a televised speech.
Hamas last year gave Israel through its intermediary Egypt a list of 450 prisoners that the Islamist movement wanted freed before agreeing to release Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian commandos in Gaza in 2006.
Israel has said it rejected the list because many of the detainees were implicated in attacks that killed Israelis.
"We are more concerned about closing this case than the occupier, and it could be done very quickly if the occupier agrees to the demands of the Palestinian people," Haniya said.
The fate of Shalit, who is being held by Hamas, has become a major sticking point in Egyptian-mediated negotiations for a possible truce in the Gaza Strip.
Israel has demanded progress in freeing the soldier as one of the conditions for a truce and on Sunday an official said that it could be a deal breaker.
"Gilad Shalit has become a deal breaker," an Israeli official told AFP.
"If he returns home it would be much easier to reach a truce. But without Shalit I cannot see Israel adopting a truce agreement."
Haniya also confirmed that a Hamas delegation from Gaza and another "from the exterior", alluding to the Islamist group's leadership based in Syria, would go to Cairo for talks with Egyptian mediators about a Gaza truce on Monday and Tuesday.
Images
An armed Hamas member parades next to a poster of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip in 2007. The head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has reiterated its demand for Israel to release 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit.
© 2007 AFP Said Khatib
