Meet the Hamas men behind the Shalit talks

The dominant members of the Hamas delegation that arrived in Damascus on Tuesday to make a final decision on a deal for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit are Ahmed Jabari and Mahmoud Zahar.

Jabari is the commander of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip, which is the group that actually holds Shalit. He initially belonged to the rival Fatah movement, but while serving time in an Israeli jail in the 1980s, he switched to Hamas.

In the mid-1990s he served as the liaison between Hamas' military and political wings, but became the military wing's leader earlier this decade after Israel killed Salah Shehadeh and seriously wounded Mohammed Deif, the group's previous top guns. Palestinian media reports claim that Jabari has survived two Israeli assassination attempts.

Zahar, a physician, is one of Hamas' founders. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood as a student in Egypt, and when he returned to Gaza he helped set up a local equivalent. In 1988 he was briefly arrested by Israel, and in 1992 he was one of the Hamas leaders whom the Rabin government temporarily deported to South Lebanon.

After Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated by Israel, Zahar, who is considered one of the movement's most extreme figures, became the dominant member of Hamas' political leadership in Gaza. In 2003 he survived an Israeli assassination attempt, but the missile strike killed his son. After Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections in 2006, he became the PA's foreign minister.

The delegation's other members include:

* Salah Bardawil, who heads Hamas' parliamentary faction and is considered a relative moderate. He has a doctorate in literature and is a well-known author and essayist for Arabic-language publications. He is known for his ability to expound Hamas' positions in a nonconfrontational way, which has made him a favorite of the Egyptians in their efforts to mediate both the Shalit deal and reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.

* Ayman Taha, the official spokesman for Hamas in Gaza and the son of one of Hamas' founders. His older brother was killed by Israel in 2003 due to his role as a bomb-maker for Hamas' military wing, but Ayman belongs to the group's political wing.

* Imad al-Alami, an engineer, whom Israel also deported to South Lebanon in 1992. There, he met Hamas' Damascus-based political leaders and became part of the organization's political wing. He is now its liaison to the military wing and is known for his close ties with Iran.

* Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the political wing who serves as a Hamas spokesman abroad. Like Taha, he belongs to the group's younger generation.