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Crunch time for Hamas prisoner swap talks: Israel
2009-03-15
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Egyptian-brokered negotiations on a prisoner swap with Hamas are at a crucial stage and any deal will be decided in days, senior Israeli officials said Sunday as two envoys held talks in Cairo. A special cabinet session on Monday will hear the report of the two envoys and will then make its decision, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of the weekly government meeting. "The government will receive the update and in accordance with the circumstances and the information, we will decide," he said. Israeli media said the envoys were carrying an ultimatum from Olmert warning that if Hamas does not agree to a deal by Sunday night, the group will have to deal with the new Israeli government, which is likely to be less flexible. But Hamas insisted it would not give in to "Zionist pressure" and said its demands for the release of hundreds of prisoners have not changed. "We do not have anything new on this issue," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said. "We are sticking by our conditions and we don't care about the Zionist pressure." A prisoner swap would see the release of Gilad Shalit, a now 22-year-old Israeli conscript seized by Gaza militants in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006, in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. There are currently more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Over the last week Shalit's family and supporters have held vigil in a protest tent erected across the street from Olmert's residence in Jerusalem, waving banners and Israeli flags at passing motorists. "We are waiting. It's not so easy. We are living a continuous nightmare," Noam Shalit, the soldier's father and the public face of the campaign for his release, told AFP. "We cannot just wait at home and sit. We tried that option and it didn't bring any results... Now it's the last narrow window of time." On Sunday a few dozen activists, mostly young people, gathered at the tent beneath a cold, blowing rain to demand the release of Shalit, whose confinement tests what many Israelis see as a sacred duty to bring their soldiers home. "I believe the state of Israel is responsible for the life of every soldier it sends into battle on any mission," said Halil Givaty, from the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. He is 19, the same age Shalit was when he was captured, and will begin his mandatory military service next year. "This could happen to me or to many of my friends who now joining combat units." Olmert has intensified efforts to secure Shalit's release before his government's likely replacement by one led by the hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Outgoing Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said: "Today the issue will be decided for better or for worse. "Over the weekend great efforts were made to reach a deal. Hamas understands that the days of this government are numbered," he added. "This government is ready to approve a deal. But if the government is replaced, there is no telling what will be." Israel is reportedly trying to get Hamas to drop the names of some prisoners with "blood on their hands," but any final deal is almost sure to include the release of Palestinians who have killed Israeli civilians. The reported terms of the prisoner exchange pose an agonising dilemma for Israelis, but Shalit's father said many families who have lost loved ones in attacks by Palestinian militants have been to the tent to show their support. "We wish we could bring all those who were killed back to life, but we cannot. Gilad is still alive," he said. Olmert has sent his special negotiator, Ofer Dekel, and the head of Israel's Shin Beth internal security service, Yuval Diskin, to Cairo to meet with Egyptian officials who have been mediating the talks. Israeli officials have been warning Hamas, the Islamist movement which rules the Gaza Strip, to strike a deal with the Olmert government as reaching an agreement with Netanyahu may prove to be more difficult. Netanyahu is hoping to present a government to parliament by the end of this week.
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