Hamas Meets in Cairo to Discuss Prisoner Exchange With Israel

By Gwen Ackerman and Saud Abu Ramadan

Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Senior Hamas officials from the Gaza Strip and Syria met in Cairo to discuss a prisoner exchange deal that would free Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who has been held by the Palestinian group for three years, an official said.

“The delegations will discuss the progress which was achieved in the indirect talks to free Shalit in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,” Ayman Taha, a Gaza-based Hamas spokesman, said at a press conference today.

Taha said “great progress” had been made and anticipated the deal’s conclusion on the eve of Eid al Adha, a Muslim holiday beginning on Nov. 27.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, who visited Cairo yesterday, also noted movement in German- and Egyptian-mediated talks to free Shalit, Peres spokeswoman Ayelet Frish said in a phone interview.

The Hamas delegation from Gaza is led by senior leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, the Gaza-based Safa Palestinian Press Agency said. Some other officials, including Hamas political bureau chief Khalid Mashaal, are based in Syria.

Also on the agenda in Cairo is an Egyptian proposal for reconciliation between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in June 2007 and ended a partnership government with it.

Palestinian Elections

The 25-page proposal calls for an end to the feud and for general elections on June 28, 2010, delayed from the originally planned Jan. 23 ballot, Taha said. Fatah has accepted the document, while Hamas said outstanding points still had to be negotiated.

Hamas demanded that Israel free hundreds of prisoners in exchange for Shalit, whom Palestinian militants captured in a 2006 raid on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Israel and Hamas have disagreed about 70 of the Palestinian prisoners on the list to be freed, Fox News said on its Web site yesterday. Hamas recently sent Israel new names, which Israeli officials said met their criteria for release, Fox said.

Some Palestinian prisoners have informed their families they will be released soon, the Ynet news site reported today, without saying where it got the information.