Hamas: No talks to free Israelis unless ‘Shalit prisoners’ released

27 June 2016, 5:50 pm

Edit

Hamas official Ismail Radwan says the Islamist group will not negotiate the release of Israeli soldiers and civilians until the group’s preconditions are met.

Radwan, according to a report on the Palestinian news site Quds Press, says Hamas’s decision not to negotiate the release of Israelis until all of the “Shalit prisoners” are freed is “final.”

In 2011, kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian detainees. Israel rearrested some of those released in the deal in the summer of 2014 during a search for three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped and, it later emerged, killed by a Hamas cell.

— Dov Lieber