Hamas recently jacked up the number of Palestinian detainees it wants Zionist entity to release in exchange for captured soldier Gilad Shalit, from 1,000 to 1,500, a senior Zionist government source said.
At a meeting with senior cabinet ministers, both Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin and Ofer Dekel, who was appointed by Zionist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to oversee the negotiations, blamed the sudden increase in Hamas’ demands on Zionist entity’s agreement to a cease-fire with the organization in the Gaza Strip.
A Zionist ministerial committee headed by Vice Premier Haim Ramon is slated to discuss the Shalit deal on Sunday, and Olmert has asked it to draft a list of 450 detainees that Zionist entity would be willing to release in exchange for the soldier. This would be the first time Zionist entity has prepared such a list. Until now, it has merely approved or rejected the names submitted by Hamas.
The Wednesday meeting was attended by Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior defense officials. Barak reported on his trip to Cairo the day before, during which he discussed the Shalit deal with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.
According to the Zionist government source, Egypt told Barak that Hamas is currently demanding 1,500 detainees in exchange for Shalit.
Initially, the organization had demanded the release of 450 detainees, and submitted a list of the specific detainees it wanted. A few months ago, it raised its demands to 1,000, with the initial 450 to be freed simultaneously with Shalit and the remainder in stages thereafter. It has now upped its demands again.
Both Diskin and Dekel told the ministers that the cease-fire hardened Hamas’ stance by eliminating the pressure, claiming that the Zionist entity had been exerting via both military operations and an economic blockade. He also calimed that as a result of that, Hamas no longer feels any urgency about concluding a deal, they said.
They therefore argued that the only way to conclude the deal was to go back to exerting pressure, even if this endangers the truce. Dekel suggested halting all fuel supplies to Gaza or closing the border crossings that were reopened under the truce.
Barak, in contrast, said Zionist entity had to demonstrate a willingness to move toward Hamas’ demands. “We embarked on the truce for Gilad Shalit’s sake, and we need to utilize this period to achieve progress in the negotiations,” he said. “If we demonstrate more willingness, it could be that Hamas will demonstrate more willingness.”
the Zionist sources claimed that the list the ministerial committee is expected to draft on Sunday will include the 70 detainees requested by Hamas whose release Zionist entity has already approved, plus an unspecified number of others on Hamas’ list whose release is expected to be approved once the cabinet adopts new, more lenient criteria. The remainder will be Zionist entity’s choice. Once completed, Zionist entity will ask Egypt to pass the list on to Hamas.
