|
A prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas will be decided within the next few days, senior Israeli officials said on Sunday as two envoys were holding crunch talks on the issue in Egypt.
A special cabinet session on Monday will hear the report of the two envoys and will then make its decision, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of the weekly government meeting.
"My envoys will return this evening and will report at the cabinet meeting tomorrow," he said.
"The government will receive the update and in accordance with the circumstances and the information, we will decide ... which decision should be made."
The interior minister in the outgoing government, Meir Sheetrit, said that the talks the envoys conduct in Egypt on Sunday will be crucial.
"Today the issue will be decided for better or for worse," he told reporters. "I hope it will be decided for the better.
"Over the weekend great efforts were made to reach a deal. Hamas understands that the days of this government are numbered," he added.
"This government is ready to approve a deal, but if the government is replaced, there is no telling what will be."
A prisoner swap would see the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006, in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Olmert dispatched his special negotiator, Ofer Dekel, and the head of Israel's internal security services, Yuval Diskin, to Cairo to make a "further effort" in the talks, his office said on Saturday.
Diskin and Dekel will "meet Egyptian officials mediating the release of Gilad Shalit and will examine if progress can be made" in the talks, it said in a statement.
Olmert has upped efforts to secure the release of Shalit, who has become an Israeli cause celebre, before his government is replaced by that of hawk Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli officials have been warning Hamas, the Islamists who rule the Gaza Strip, to strike a deal with the Olmert government as reaching an agreement with Netanyahu may prove to be more difficult.
Netanyahu is hoping to present a government to parliament by the end of this week. |