GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israel indicated yesterday that it wants to swap Palestinians held in Israeli jails for an Israeli soldier captured in 2006 as part of a longer-term truce after three weeks of fighting in Gaza.
Israeli media said some Cabinet ministers have softened their positions on releasing dangerous Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Shalit, signaling the government is trying to work out a deal with Hamas ahead of Israeli elections next month.
Hamas has demanded the release of hundreds of prisoners, including convicted murderers, in exchange for Shalit, who was seized by Hamas-linked fighters in a cross-border raid.
“I believe the war created levers that could hasten Gilad Shalit’s return home,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters while touring the rocket-scarred town of Sderot.
The Yediot Ahronot newspaper said Olmert sees freeing Shalit as his top priority before leaving office in a few weeks. Army Radio said the prime minister hoped for a deal by the end of his term. The media reports might be an effort by the government to prepare the public for an unpopular prisoner release.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
But the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups involved in Shalit’s capture, called the reports of Israel’s new flexibility “a new victory.”
“Our demand is still the same, that all Palestinian prisoners which we have asked for be released and we emphasize the fact that releasing prisoners is at the top of our priorities,” said Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for the group in Gaza.
Many Palestinian families have relatives in Israeli prisons and prisoner releases are of supreme importance in Palestinian society. Israel holds some 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in all.
Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who takes part in security deliberations, told Army Radio yesterday that Israel wouldn’t let border crossings with Gaza reopen without a deal to free Schalit.
However, Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s political-security branch, was expected to raise the issue in Cairo during talks with the Egyptian officials yesterday on the security situation following the Gaza invasion. Gilad is expected to say that Israel would not open the crossings except for humanitarian needs until negotiations for Shalit’s release are resumed. While refraining from directly negotiating with Hamas, Israel has in past talks used Egypt as a broker.
— With input from Mohammed Mar’i
