Hamas-Israel talks on prisoner swap collapse
Compiled by Daily Star staff
A senior Hamas leader said on Tuesday indirect talks with Israel on a prisoner exchange had collapsed and blamed Premier Benjamin Netanyahu for hardening Israeli terms. “The main cause … is that after the interference of the political element, after the interference of Netanyahu personally, there was a big regression and retraction,” Mahmoud al-Zahar told BBC World News’ Hardtalk program. “For this reason, everything now is stopped,” Zahar said in Gaza.
An official in Netanyahu’s office said last month the prime minister had signaled a tougher stance in negotiations mediated by Germany on a deal under which captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit would be traded for about 1,000 of the more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Israel, the Hamas official said, was demanding that dozens of Palestinians imprisoned after being convicted of involvement in lethal attacks be deported upon their release.
Netanyahu, asked about Zahar’s remarks, told a news conference with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi: “If Hamas wants a deal, it will happen. If it doesn’t want a deal, it won’t happen. The decision is in their hands.”
Netanyahu said Israel wanted to win the soldier’s release but also wanted to avoid freeing Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis to West Bank areas where they could launch further attacks.
Hamas had accepted that some released prisoners would be exiled but wanted them to be able to choose their destinations, said officials familiar with the negotiations.
As a right-wing leader, Netanyahu faces a particular dilemma in freeing Palestinians who might commit further violence. But he is also under heavy public pressure to win Shalit’s release.
The soldier was seized in 2006 by militants who tunneled into Israel from the Gaza Strip, now ruled by Hamas.
Meanwhile, Egypt on Tuesday welcomed statements by Hamas leaders that they were ready to seal a unity deal with the rival Fatah faction but said Cairo’s blueprint for Palestinian reconciliation was not up for negotiations.
“Successive statements from several Hamas leaders regarding their willingness to achieve Palestinian reconciliation are welcome,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said.
But he ruled out requests by Hamas to modify an Egyptian-drafted document to seal the reconciliation between the Islamist group and Fatah, the mainly secular party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“This matter would delay reconciliation indefinitely,” Zaki said in a statement.
“Opening the way for any changes in the document would mean … a regression,” Zaki said, in apparent reference to repeated reservations by Hamas over the Egyptian proposals.
Egypt’s efforts to re-unite the two rival factions have so far failed and Cairo has postponed twice a planned signing of a reconciliation agreement because of the deep divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
During the last try in October Hamas refused to sign the Egyptian-brokered document aimed at paving the way for legislative and presidential polls. Fatah signed the document.
Zaki said reservations from Hamas or any other faction would be considered when implementing the agreement.
His remarks came after Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said on the weekend that his group was willing to reconcile with Fatah if invited to Cairo.
“The reconciliation is within reach,” Meshaal said at a ceremony in Damascus on Sunday for Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a top Hamas militant who was killed in Dubai on January 20.
He urged Egypt “to receive us in Cairo … and you will see that the Palestinians will be reconciled immediately. That is my message to Egypt.”
Hamas routed Fatah from the Gaza Strip in 2007 after deadly fighting, a year after winning Palestinian legislative elections.
Tensions with Egypt soared after Hamas refused to sign the deal, and were exacerbated by Egypt’s construction of an underground barrier on its border with Gaza. – Reuters, AFP
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