CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday that linking the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to Israel s current fragile truce with Gaza militants is unrealistic.
To link the fate of one soldier to so many dead on both sides is unrealistic , Mubarak said during an interview with Israeli television of which excerpts were published by the official MENA news agency.
The interview was made after Mubarak hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Sharm El-Sheikh to discuss the Gaza truce and a possible prisoner exchange involving Shalit, 21, captured by Palestinian militants two years ago.
Let s be realistic and live the reality of the truce [or] they will continue firing rockets and you will attack them and you will die and they will die, for one soldier, Mubarak said, on the sixth day of the truce.
But the soldier is another track we re working on. Why mix everything up?
Let s be realistic. We should not mix all issues and ruin everything he said.
Linking Shalit s freedom to the reopening of Rafah is a way to spoil everything … All you re interested in is Shalit, but that s something that s underway just as negotiations with the Palestinians are underway.
The truce deal earned Olmert heavy domestic criticism for not making it conditional upon Hamas releasing Shalit.
Following the summit, an Israeli official who asked not to be named said that Olmert received clear assurances that Rafah will not be opened as long as the question of Shalit is not solved.
Israel has eased some of its restrictions on Gaza as part of the truce, but made any opening of Rafah, the only crossing that bypasses Israel, conditional on a prisoner swap.
Egypt played a key role as mediator in brokering the ceasefire as Israel rejects direct contact with Hamas, which it blacklists as a terrorist group. Hamas in turn refuses to recognize the Jewish state.
On Tuesday, two rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip hit Israel, causing little damage and no casualties, were described by Israel as a gross violation of the truce.
Mubarak voiced hope that the truce would continue on the Israeli side as on the Hamas side in Gaza. -AFP
