Israel Renews Bid to Free Soldier Held by Hamas

JERUSALEM —Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel had recently renewed contacts with a German mediator to negotiate the release of a captured Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who is being held by Hamas.
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“We are working all the time and in various ways to try to bring Gilad back,” Mr. Netanyahu told Israel’s Army Radio. “One of those ways, even the main way, is through negotiations, which indeed resumed a few weeks ago.”

Hamas officials had stated over the weekend that in recent weeks, the German mediator had visited Gaza, which is governed by the Islamic militant group. Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman, said the visit was “exploratory,” according to The Associated Press.

Sergeant Shalit was seized in a crossborder raid by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in June 2006, and was taken into Gaza. He was 19 at the time, and efforts to end his prolonged incarceration in Gaza have become an emotional cause in Israel.

The latest contacts that could lead to an agreement to release Sergeant Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners come at a time of uncertainty surrounding the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Hamas opposes Israel’s existence and the peace talks with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, but is nonetheless interested in a prisoner exchange.

The peace talks have been under threat since Israel’s moratorium on construction in settlements in the West Bank expired last month. The Palestinian leaders, backed by the Arab League, have given the United States the month of October to try to renew the moratorium.

Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and then took full control of Gaza in 2007, routing the Palestinian Authority forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival group Fatah.

A prisoner exchange deal had seemed close in late 2009, but the talks collapsed. Israel and Hamas each accused the other of failing to reach agreement. Israel has expressed readiness for a prisoner exchange, but has balked at releasing some of those demanded by Hamas, including those whom Israel has convicted as planners and perpetrators of some of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent years.

A year ago, Israel released 20 Palestinian women from its jails in exchange for a videotape of Sergeant Shalit that proved he was alive.

The Israeli government is under constant pressure to arrange the soldier’s release. But despite the popular support here for some kind of a deal, many also have qualms about releasing some of the most notorious prisoners.

Tens of thousands of Israelis joined the Shalit family this summer for parts of a 12-day march from their home in northern Israel to Jerusalem to draw attention to their son’s plight. Since then, the soldier’s parents have spent their days in a tent on a sidewalk near the prime minister’s residence.

Noam Shalit, the captured soldier’s father, said he knew of no progress toward his son’s release and that as far as he was aware, the negotiations were “stuck.”

Some Israeli commentators have made unfavorable comparisons in recent days between the Israeli government’s efforts to win Sergeant Shalit’s release and the more successful efforts of the Chilean government to rescue the 33 miners stuck underground.

On Sunday, the Israeli military carried out an airstrike in northern Gaza against what it said was a squad preparing to fire rockets into Israel. Medical officials in Gaza said two men were killed.