Sky News in Arabic on Friday reported that the Hamas terror group is demanding that archterrorist Marwan Barghouti be released in the first stage of a ceasefire-prisoner swap deal.
Barghouti is serving several life sentences for murdering Israelis, and is widely believed to have planned the Second Intifada, which claimed thousands of Israeli lives from 2000 to 2005. Barghouti has continued inciting to terrorism from his jail cell.
According to a report in The National, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is demanding a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of a number of security prisoners with blood on their hands as part of the general agreement for a ceasefire and an end to the war.
According to the source, the two terrorists who Sinwar named specifically are Barghouti and Ahmad Sadat, the head of the PFLP group who was convicted, among other crimes, of participation in the 2001 murder of Minister Rehavam Zeevi, the most senior Israeli official murdered in a terror attack. In 2008, Sadat was sentenced to 30 years in prison; he is expected to be released at age 85.
Official sources have noted that, "Right now, there is no breakthrough in the negotiations for a deal, and at any rate Hamas has not yet responded to the proposal. The Prime Minister has agreed to the request by the US and negotiators to send a delegation to Cairo on August 15."