GAZA CITY: Egypt s president didn t know what he was talking about when he said an Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants was alive and well, a top Hamas official announced Wednesday, in rare public criticism of the Egyptian leader.
Egypt has been mediating attempts to trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel for Sgt. Gilad Shalit, the soldier captured by Hamas-allied militants three years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza.
Shalit has not been seen since then, and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him.
President Hosni Mubarak said Monday that Shalit was in good condition and hopefully would be released soon. Mubarak, who made the announcement during a visit to Cairo by Israeli President Shimon Peres, gave no details on where he got his information.
In Gaza, Hamas negotiator Osama Al-Muzaini said Mubarak s comment was meant for public relations consumption and reflected his wishful thinking. He said nobody knows if Shalit is dead or alive, except for his captors.
Hamas has been upset with Egypt for joining Israel in an economic blockade of Gaza since the group seized power there two years ago. Still, up to now Hamas officials have been careful not to insult Mubarak in public, wary of antagonizing their powerful neighbor. It was not clear why Al-Muzaini used such unusually blunt language. Egyptian officials did not immediately react.
Al-Muzaini said there was no insult. We aren t embarrassing anybody here, he said. Also, Hamas officials said a meeting Tuesday in Damascus between Hamas and Egyptian officials was friendly and warm.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, said they took Mubarak s comments seriously, noting that Egyptian intelligence officials had recently been in Gaza as part of efforts to revive negotiations.
Speaking at a memorial ceremony Wednesday for soldiers killed in Israel s war in Lebanon three years ago, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said winning freedom for the soldier is our supreme military and moral obligation, and we will do everything possible and proper to bring him home safe and sound.
Tuesday s developments came at a sensitive time. The negotiations have been on hold since Israel s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took office in March. A last-minute push by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, to swap hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the soldier failed.
Egypt has been eager to resolve the Shalit issue to help restart peace efforts in the region. The new Israeli government sent a top negotiator to Egypt in late June and is also eager to see a deal reached to free the soldier.
A breakthrough could lead to an easing of Israel s blockade of Gaza, which has caused widespread hardship in the coastal territory, and spur the rival Palestinian governments to reconcile. Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ruled from the West Bank since Hamas ousted his forces in its Gaza takeover two years ago.
Senior Egyptian intelligence officials were in Syria on Thursday to talk to the Hamas supreme leadership about reconciliation and the prisoner swap. The Egyptian delegation is expected to travel to the West Bank for talks with Abbas government on Thursday.
Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomatic matter, said they expect the Egyptian-mediated negotiations to resume soon, perhaps in the coming days. But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said there is no movement.
One complicating factor is a brewing scandal in Israel surrounding Netanyahu s chief negotiator, Hagai Hadas.
Hadas, a former Mossad spy official, is a director of Israeli company SafeSky, which claimed this week it had won a $370 million investment from a Taiwanese company in a miracle medical product it has developed.
The alleged purchaser, Micro-Star International Corp., has denied any deal.
SafeSky says its Life Keeper heart monitoring patch can be put on the wrist and predict a heart attack a half hour before it occurs. Israeli medical experts have expressed skepticism about the claim, and Israeli newspapers have reported that one of the company s founders, Aharon Klein, has served two prison terms for fraud.
Hadas told The Marker, an Israeli business newspaper, that the business is legitimate. In the next few days, everyone will see the proof of the deal, he was quoted as saying.
Netanyahu s office issued a statement saying Hadas private affairs are his personal responsibility and are carried out with his knowledge alone, and are entirely unrelated to his public role. -AP writers Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
