Palestine, November 24, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) - Ben Eliezer expects Israeli government to approve prisoner-swap deal with Hamas soon.

An Israeli minister said on Tuesday that a deal with the democratically elected Hamas movement to swap a Gaza-held soldier in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners was "very close."

"I think that we are very close to a deal on an exchange," Industry Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer told army radio from Turkey, where he is on a visit.

"There will be a high price to pay, but I think the government will approve it," he said. "This deal will prove to all the mothers of Israel that we are not ready to abandon a single soldier."

The comments came a day after hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was no deal yet over a swap involving Gilad Shalit, a soldier held in Gaza for more than three years, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

He said the government would have to approve any agreement and that Israel's parliament would debate it.

Rumours have swirled in recent days in Israel, Gaza and Egypt that a deal was imminent in the German-mediated talks.

On Monday, a Hamas delegation entered Egypt, which has played a key role in the indirect negotiations, to discuss the issue with Egyptian officials.

Shalit, who holds both Israeli and French nationality, was seized in June 2006 when Gaza resistance groups, including Hamas, tunnelled out of the enclave and attacked an Israeli army post, killing two other soldiers.

Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter' siege had already existed before.

Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel's siege of Gaza, branding it "collective punishment."

A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing "genocide" through its crippling blockade of the Strip.

Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.

Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, both of which are Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.

Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.

Middle East Online