Almanar
11/12/2009 Hamas politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal said, "The Shalit deal will not see light without Israel's compliance with Hamas' demands."
In a meeting with Palestinians in Yemen on Friday, Mashaal said, "The movement is working to ensure the release of prisoners from all factions. This deal is the first step towards the release of all the Palestinians prisoners from Israeli prisons."
Hamas official Dr. Khalil al-Haya said negotiations over a prisoner exchange deal are ongoing. According to al-Haya, almost all media reports of the deal are based on rumors stemming from the "occupation", "which hopes to improve the talks through these rumors and gain achievements and pressure the Palestinians, and mainly the prisoners' families."
Al-Haya said that Hamas is standing its ground, and hinted that there are Palestinian bodies that do not wish to see the deal finalized, and are therefore spreading rumors of its failure. He was referring to a recent meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, when Abbas said there was no deal between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier, Fatah head in the West Bank Marwan Barghouti said in an interview to CNN: "I am part of the list that Hamas is negotiating over, and I have high hopes and expectations to be released in this deal."
When asked how he feels about the impending deal in which some 1,000 Palestinian detainees may be released in exchange for the one Israeli occupation soldier Gilad Shalit, Barghouti said: “Israel is holding inside its prisons and detention facilities more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have spent more than 32 years of their life inside prisons. Also, Israel detains hundreds of prisoners without trial or charges or anything.”
"Israel is an occupying country that uses oppression and aggression against the Palestinians for decades. It confiscates land, builds illegal settlements, kills and assassinates, and arrests close to 500 Palestinians on a monthly basis, establishes and erects military checkpoints, besieges the Gaza strip."
Meanwhile, Al-Hayyat daily quoted senior Hamas officials on Friday as saying that a prisoner swap deal was unlikely to be completed in the near future. The officials said that Israel was still refusing its demands regarding 100 of the 450 detainees set for release.
According to the daily, Hamas is threatening to reveal to the public the reasons behind the stalled negotiations should Israel continue to refuse its demands. Until now, a strict curtain has been placed over details of the talks.
Media have reported of late progress in the talks to see Shalit freed, more than three years after he was captured by Palestinian resistance fighters. A deal was predicted by late last months, but negotiations have not yet yielded a result.
According to Al-Hayyat, Israel has not yet delivered its response to the Islamic resistance organization's offers for the deal.
Hamas' minister of prisoner affairs, Mahmoud Parag Alghoul, on Thursday blamed Israel for the failure in talks.
On Thursday, Hamas called on the Palestinians to expect "surprises" during next week's rally marking the 22nd anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Resistance Movement, sparking speculation that its leaders may exploit the event to announce a prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.
The rally, which is scheduled to be take place at the Katiba Square in the center of Gaza City Monday afternoon, is expected to draw tens of thousands of Hamas supporters.
Hamas representatives said this year's "celebration" would be different from past events because it would be held amid reports of an imminent prisoner exchange agreement with Israel.
This would also be the fist event of its kind since the Israeli occupation army's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas representative at the secret negotiations, said that Israel's refusal to release dozens of detainees was hindering the signing of an agreement. He told an Egyptian newspaper that a deal was now contingent on a "political will" by both Hamas and Israel.
He said that a deal could be reached soon if Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accepted Hamas's demands in full. He also accused the US of seeking to obstruct a prisoner exchange agreement out of fear that such a move would bolster the movement's standing and undermine the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
Meanwhile, sources close to Hamas told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jareeda that the main dispute between Israel and Hamas centered around eight detainees whom Israel was refusing to include in a deal.
The sources named the eight as Marwan Barghouti, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's Ahmed Sa'dat, top Hamas operatives Ibrahim Hamed, Abbas Assayed and Abdullah Barghouti, as well as female inmates Amned Muna, Ahlam Tamimi and Qahera al-Sa'di.
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