Egypt has confirmed a deal between Israel and Hamas on the exchange of some 1,000 jailed Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Egyptian MENA news agency reported on Wednesday.
“The Egyptian intelligence applied great efforts being in contact with Hamas and Israel… and managed to reach a deal, which is expected to be implemented with a week,” the agency said.
The agency added that some of the jailed Palestinians to be released have been sentenced to serve long terms in Israeli prisons.
Shalit, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was seized in June 2006 by Palestinian militants in a raid near the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians had demanded the release of nearly 1,000 of their men from Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit.
