Egyptian FM: Israel not willing to pay price for Gilad Shalit

               Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Wednesday that Cairo was working to convince Israel to ease some of its demands for a prisoner swap with Hamas that would see the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Aboul Gheit told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayyat that Israel is not willing to pay the necessary price for the release of Shalit, who has been in Palestinian captivity since he was seized in a 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip. According to Aboul Gheit, Israel's insistence on exiling Hamas prisoners freed as part of the swap deal is holding up negotiations, as the number of militants and stages of release have already been set. He pledged that Egypt would guarantee that all prisoners released would not attack Israel and said Jerusalem's demands were unacceptable, unethical, and inhumane. The Egyptian minister said that Hamas' request to free Israeli Arabs jailed as security prisoners was also stalling the deal. The new Israeli envoy charged with negotiating the deal, Haggai Hadas, held his first round of talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo over a week ago. Egypt has been mediating for a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the Hamas-rulers of the Gaza Strip. (10,39)