Two weeks after outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent Hamas Israel's "final offer" for a prisoner swap deal for the return of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, top negotiator Ofer Dekel is heading abroad, possibly for more talks.
The prime minister's special envoy left Israel on Saturday, according to a report broadcast on IDF Army Radio. His destination was unknown. The Prime Minister's Office denied that Dekel was heading to Egypt and said in a statement that indirect negotiations for the soldier's freedom, brokered by Egypt, had not been resumed.
While he is gone, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann is slated to present to the Cabinet a plan to toughen prison conditions for Hamas terrorists being held in Israel. The move is being considered as a means of ratcheting up pressure on the terror group to agree to Israel's latest offer.
Hamas snubbed the deal after Israel drew the line at freeing only 325 out of the 450 "heavy-hitter" terrorists with "blood on their hands" whose release the terrorist group has demanded. Israel also insisted on deporting out of the country a number of the worst offenders.
There have been reports throughout the week that indirect talks between the terrorist group and Israel were continuing via an Egyptian mediator who allegedly met in Israel with Dekel and fellow negotiator Amos Gilad. Mohammed Ibrahim, deputy to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, allegedly traveled to an unidentified spot in Israel to meet with the two negotiators as well as Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) director Yuval Diskin.
Despite reports in Arab newspapers that there was progress being made, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said Hamas was still refusing to change its stance vis-a-vis the number of murderers it is insisting on freeing.
One of the Hamas terrorists responsible for kidnapping Shalit threatened Saturday to carry out similar attacks in the future. If terrorists have more soldiers in captivity, Israel may be more willing to release senior Hamas terrorists from prison, said Ra'ad al-Atar, head of the group's military wing in the southern Gaza region around the border town of Rafiah, next to Egypt. The threats were published on one of the group's websites.
The Campaign to Free Gilad Shalit, meanwhile, has elected to lower its profile, possibly in the hopes of also lowering Hamas's expectations. "We have no knowledge of any progress in the negotiations… it has been decided that at this stage, there would not be any additional activities, on the assumption that the issue is being dealt with properly in the current government's final days," the campaign said in a statement.
All told, the deal would include 1,000 Palestinian Authority prisoners being held in Israeli jails, in addition to opening the Gaza crossings to free and unrestricted traffic in and out of the region.
The Almagor Terror Victims Association and other terror victims' groups have vehemently opposed the current plan to free hundreds of Arab murderers in exchange for the soldier, arguing that more Israelis will forfeit their lives as a result.