The “Public Campaign for the Release of Gilad Shalit” plans to celebrate the Jewish New Year with a dinner outside the home of newly-elected Kadima party chairwoman Tzipi Livni.

 

The group's “campaign headquarters” congratulated Livni in a statement on her victory at the primary polls, and said it “expects her to take immediate action to ensure Gilad’s release.”

 

IDF Staff Sergeant Shalit remains in the hands of Hamas terrorists who kidnapped him on June 25, 2006.

 

Government negotiator for prisoner affairs Ofer Dekel traveled to Cairo on Wednesday to hand Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman a list of the Palestinian Authority terrorists Israel is willing to free in exchange for the IDF captive.

 

According to a report published in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, Suleiman said he would forward the list to Hamas sometime during the day on Thursday.

 

Israel’s government spokesman was unavailable for comment

 

Loss of Faith in Egypt

Several splinter groups in Gaza have made efforts to lock Egypt out of the process of negotiating for Shalit in recent months.

 

A report published by the InternationalMiddle EastMediaCenter stated earlier this month that the Damascus-based leader of the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) had said Hamas was losing faith in Egyptian mediators. Abdul al-Majid had said that the terror group believed the Egyptians were acting according to American instructions.

 

The PPSF is a small extremist group which split off from Fatah and then from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970’s. As with Hamas, it is split, with one faction in Judea and Samaria and the other based in Damascus.

 

Gaza-based Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan denied that Hamas was considering abandoning its talks with Egypt. Following the statement by al-Majid, he issued a written statement saying flatly that “reports on moving Shalit’s case from Egypt to other Arab parties are inaccurate and untrue.”

 

Radwan added that Egypt had halted its mediated talks until Israel was “more compromising” and said that Hamas was “not in a hurry to finalize” any deals.