TEL AVIV: Israel and Egypt agreed on Monday to renew Cairo-led efforts to broker a prisoner swap between the Jewish state and the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, senior officials said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will next week name a pointman to coordinate the indirect talks on the release of Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Gaza fighters almost three years ago, a senior Israeli official told AFP.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly told Netanyahu on Monday at the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh that his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will immediately start contacts to renew the negotiations, according to another Israeli official.
Negotiations in Cairo in mid-March aimed at securing the prisoner exchange foundered, with Hamas and Israel blaming each other for the failure.
The talks have not been renewed since Netanyahu s right-leaning government took office last month, and the premier has so far refused to say whether he was willing to accept the outlines of the previous talks.
Israel, which launched a devastating 22-day offensive on Gaza over the new year, has made a lasting ceasefire and an end to its blockade of the enclave conditional on Shalit s release. -AFP
