The former head of the General Security Service (Shin Bet) on Saturday obliquely criticized the agency he once led, saying it has failed IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit, still in the hands of the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped him in June, 2006.
It is impossible to rescue Shalit even now, he said, a year and a half after he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid near the Kerem Shalom crossing.
"There is not enough intelligence to carry out such an operation," said Ayalon, currently a Minister-without-Portfolio and member of the Security Cabinet. "The intelligence community has not managed to gather enough information on the issue," he added.
Speaking at a Shabbat event held Saturday at Kibbutz Moledet in the north, Ayalon also slammed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to release hundreds of Palestinian Authority terrorists on the altar of negotiations with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
"Shalit is the Palestinians' captive because we uphold certain moral codes," he said. "We have to be pragmatic and take another look at the prisoners released…. [they] should not be held as bargaining chips, but we have to rethink the release criteria."
Ayalon maintained "We are doing everything morally within our power to free Gilad Shalit." A senior Hamas official appeared to corroborate Ayalon's claim, telling a Ynet reporter that Egyptian officials had resumed efforts it abandoned months ago to try to negotiate a prisoner swap between the terrorist group and Israel.
Other sources said Hamas is becoming concerned that Israeli operatives may be getting closer to Shalit.
Hamas forces removed dozens of street vendors in southern Gaza, saying they were working as spies for Fatah and Israel.
The sources said the terrorist organization forced the vendors out of the area in hopes of avoiding an IDF operation to rescue Shalit. The report published by The Jerusalem Post said Shalit "is believed to be held in an underground basement in the southern Gaza Strip."
Ayalon also answered residents' questions about what the government is doing to stop the incessant Kassam rocket attacks on Sderot and other communities in the western Negev.
He agreed that a way must be found to stop the incessant attacks, but seemed to contradict himself on how that should be done.
On one hand, Ayalon said Israel should open a dialogue with Hamas as a way of finding a diplomatic means of ending the attacks, rather than proceed with a large-scale ground operation in Gaza.
He added, however that Israel should not hold political talks with the terrorist organization, until it agrees to formally recognize the existence of the State and support the idea of two states for two nations. Hamas has vowed never to recognize the State of Israel and is committed to driving the Jews out of the land.