JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives in Egypt today for talks with President Hosni Mubarak focused on the Gaza truce and
Cairo’s efforts to mediate a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas.
The meeting in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh was announced by Olmert’s office just hours after the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire in the Gaza Strip took hold last Thursday following months of bloodshed.
Both sides have since observed the truce as Palestinian militants halted all rocket fire at the south of Israel, which in turn ended its raids across Gaza and started easing its punishing blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.
Egypt played a key role in the talks as Israel rejects direct contact with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which it blacklists as a terrorist group.
The deal earned Olmert heavy domestic criticism for not making the truce conditional upon Hamas releasing army Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted two years ago in a deadly cross-border raid.
Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have vowed that the truce deal included an explicit commitment by Hamas to make progress in the talks on Shalit’s release in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians jailed in Israel.
Without progress, Israel said it would not agree to the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
“Olmert and Mubarak will tie some loose ends of the truce and will discuss the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli official told AFP.
Olmert’s special envoy for the prisoner exchange deal, Ofer Dekel, also planned to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for a new round of talks on a prisoner swap with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who mediates between Israel and Hamas.
“Israel knows it will have to pay a heavy price for Shalit’s release and free many Palestinian terrorists, said a senior defense official, who asked not to be named.
Shalit’s parents on Sunday asked Israel’s Supreme Court to instruct the state not to open the Rafah crossing before Gilad, 21, is released or before Hamas vows to release him.
The state prosecution said in its reply to the Supreme Court that following the agreement, “intensive talks on a prisoner exchange deal were expected to begin this week.
“Such talks would have been impossible without reaching the agreement on a ceasefire, the state said in a letter to the court.
Israel also insisted that under the agreement Egypt would do its utmost to halt weapons smuggling from the Sinai peninsula into Gaza, an issue that has strained ties between the two states which have a 1979 peace treaty. -AFP
