A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that the captive Israel soldier Gilad Shalit is already in Egypt accompanied by the head of the Hamas-led Al Qassam Brigades, in preparation for a prisoner exchange with Israel. The paper claims that Shalit was moved to Egypt several days ago and is being kept in a secret place guarded by Egyptian security men. Shalit was kidnapped on Israeli territory by Hamas operatives in June 2006.
Israel’s President Shimon Peres said that the prisoner exchange was delayed because of disagreements within Hamas. He told students at a kibbutz that “as long as Hamas is arguing within itself, there will be a problem. The price the government agreed to is high and difficult to implement. Shalit has become a symbol of the youth and the State. We should not issue statements all the time because they disrupt the negotiations. The government is working wholeheartedly and responsibly to bring him home."
According the Palestinian newspaper ‘Al-Ayam’, a deal still hinges on the question of 15 Palestinian prisoners who Hamas wants Israel to include in the nearly 1,000 prisoners to be freed in exchange for Shalit. Among the contentious prisoners are Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Secretary-General Ahmad Saadat; the convicted killer of Israeli teenager Ofir Nahum, Amana Muna, and two other female prisoners who aided suicide bombers. The other ten controversial names are senior Hamas leaders.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ruled out freeing one of the Palestinians' most popular leaders in exchange for Shalit. "I can guarantee you that Barghouti will not be released," Lieberman said in a radio interview. "We have no intention of releasing him because he is not just a murderer, he is a king of murderers."
Marwan Barghouti is currently serving five life sentences for murder for his role in the Second Intifada which erupted in 2000. He is widely seen as the uprising's architect, although he has said he opposed attacks on civilians inside Israel, including the scores of suicide bombers sent in by armed groups. Late last month Barghouti told an Italian newspaper that he believed that he was on a list of hundreds of prisoners whose release the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza is demanding in exchange for Shalit.
