Osama Al-Muzaini, a Gaza-based Hamas leader in charge of the negotiations over Shalit, held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for the failure of the European states initiative. He refused to name the countries.

Al-Muzaini said in a press statement that Netanyahu was interested in "lowering Hamas' demands threshold."

Hamas wants Israel to free up to 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of Shalit, and the Palestinian movement has reportedly presented a list of 450 names in Israeli prisons.

Israel also objects to freeing Israeli Arab prisoners as well as several Hamas military wing leaders. Another issue yet to be settled is Israel's demand to deport almost 100 of the 450 "heavy" prisoners set to be released in the deal.

Al-Muzaini said that his movement's condition for following through with the release is the fulfillment of all its demands.

Al-Muzaini added that the German mediator Gerhard Konrad working on brokering a deal between Hamas and Israel and visits Gaza "often," but in his latest visit did not bring any new proposals from Israel.

In October, Israel and Hamas confirmed that Konrad visited the region in bid to resume frozen talks between the sides.

Egypt and Germany mediated several rounds of talks between Hamas and Israeli in late 2009 but failed to broker a deal because Hamas presented a list of 1,000 names of Palestinian and Arab prisoners and insisted that Israel free them.

According to the recent Palestinian statistics, there are 6,700 Palestinians currently held in 10 prisons and three detention camps in Israel and in the West Bank. There are 300 prisoners under the age of 18. Israel also holds 37 females and 9 members of the Palestine Legislative Council.

Meanwhile, the Israeli forces arrested four Palestinians in several West Bank cities. Israeli security sources said that the seven were handed over to Israeli intelligence for questioning.