Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman has told Hamas that the mediator would convey Israel's final reply to a proposed 18-month truce in the Gaza Strip in the coming few days, the official MENA news agency reported Monday.
"Egypt would receive the Israeli side's final reply to the truce agreement after a couple of days," said a Hamas official, who took part Monday in a fresh round of truce talks between Suleiman and a Hamas delegation led by its politburo deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzouk.
The unnamed official, however, criticized "Israel's attempt to link the truce agreement with the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit", saying it "is a political blackmail".
Hamas announced Thursday night the group has accepted an 18-month truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip on condition that the enclave's six border crossings with Israel should be reopened and the Jewish country "stop military actions and aggressions in all forms."
Yet outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Saturday that there is no truce with Hamas before the release of its captive soldier Shalit, who was captured by Hamas-led militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006.
Hamas demands Israel pardon more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails in exchange for Shalit's release. Israel refused the request for fear that some prisoners on the list might endanger the country.
Olmert's last-ditch efforts to retrieve the soldier were rejected Sunday by the militant group, which insists that the prison swap is isolated from the truce deal.
Earlier on Monday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in Manama that his country would continue the mediation efforts between the two sides despite the new setbacks.
"The release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is a separate issue and cannot be linked to the truce," Mubarak said while meeting with his Bahraini counterpart Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.
Egypt has been endeavoring to secure a lasting truce between Hamas and Israel to replace the fragile ceasefire declared on Jan. 18 separately by both sides, which ended Israel's 22-day massive assault in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Cairo also proposed an inter-Palestinian dialogue on Feb. 22 and a Gaza reconstruction conference on March 2.
(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2009)