Report: Hamas wants Jordanian prisoners freed in Shalit deal

The Islamist Hamas movement wants Israel to free security prisoners of Jordanian origin as part of a deal for the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, the Jordan-based Al-Arab al-Yum daily reported on Monday.

The group's political bureau chief, Khaled Meshal, has apparently promised the families of the Jordanian prisoners that they too would be included in the swap.

Hamas has rejected every Israeli request to exile some of the Palestinian prisoners due to be released as part of a deal for Shalit, a senior official in the Islamist militant group said Sunday.

Osama al-Mzainy, the Hamas official in charge of the Shalit affair, also insisted that no quick agreement over the abducted soldier is in sight. Shalit has been held prisoner in the Gaza Strip since he was abducted by militants from the coastal territory in a 2006 cross-border raid.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, al-Mzainy said every prisoner should be allowed to return home.

"All the statements about optimism and expectations - that the deal will soon be sealed - all these statements are exaggerated," he told the television station. "We still need some time in order to overcome the obstacles put up by the Israelis."

He said Israel's demand that some of the released prisoners be deported is what caused the talks to fail when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, and if Israel continued to insist on this point, the current negotiations would fail as well.

Hamas, he added, has not backed down on any of its demands, including the release of 1,000 prisoners in total.

"They will be released in two stages. The first group will comprise 450 prisoners, whose names will be determined by Hamas ... In the second stage, 550 prisoners will be released. Hamas is attached to this plan. We will not accept any deal unless this request is accepted," al-Mzainy told Al Jazeera.

Netanyahu: No breakthrough, don't expect Shalit home yet

The Hamas official's comments came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that there had been no breakthrough in talks with Hamas over Shalit, and people should not expect a deal to be concluded in the coming days.

He was responding to a spate of recent media reports claiming that a deal was near.

"I do not know if there will be a breakthrough later; we hope so," Netanyahu said, adding that the government was committed to bringing Shalit home.

Shalit was kidnapped by Gaza militants in a 2006 cross-border raid; he is widely believed to still be held in the Hamas-ruled coastal strip.

Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, declined to comment specifically on Netanyahu's statement. He merely said, "I am waiting for results, but I still have not seen anything."

Netanyahu told the closed cabinet session that "talk about a deal [for Shalit] being closed in the next few days has no basis, and it will not happen tomorrow or the day after."

"We must bring Shalit back home safe and sound, but nonetheless, there is a great deal of exaggeration and inaccurate information out there," he added.

Meanwhile, the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina reported Sunday that an Egyptian security source had said a deal was close to being concluded, and only two points were still under dispute: The question of deporting some of the freed prisoners, residents of the West Bank, to Gaza, and the release of Marwan Barghouti. The report said Israel had agreed to release 450 prisoners.

Israeli sources said Palestinian officials and Hamas leaders are behind the media reports of substantive progress in the talks. Their goal, the sources said, is create confusion in Israeli public opinion and lay the groundwork for later accusing Israel of causing the prisoner exchange to fall through at the last minute, as happened in the final days of the Olmert government.