ISRAELI PRIME minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Egypt tomorrow for talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
The discussions are expected to focus on efforts to revive Middle East peace talks and the ongoing attempts to clinch a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.
Mr Netanyahu said he had requested the meeting after talks with Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, last week in Jerusalem. “I intend to continue this important dialogue,” he said.
His comments came as a Hamas delegation crossed into Egypt from Gaza for discussions on the prisoner swap, as the Islamic group considered its response to Israeli proposals conveyed last week to a German mediator.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told Israel radio that negotiations over a prisoner exchange were already in their final stages, and that Egypt had solved 90 per cent of the issues which had previously held up a deal.
Israel has already agreed to release 980 Palestinian prisoners in return for Gilad Shalit, the corporal seized by militants on the Gaza border in June 2006. However, Mr Netanyahu said the prisoner swap was not a done deal.
“At this point, there’s no deal, and it’s not clear whether or not there will be a deal,” he said. “If it comes to a vote, I’ll bring it to the government, but we’re not there yet, and I don’t know if we ever will be.”
The prime minister told the weekly cabinet meeting that while Israel wants to bring its captured soldiers home, the risks to civilians must be kept to a minimum.
He praised the weekend raid in the West Bank city of Nablus, during which Israeli troops killed three militants it claims were responsible for the killing of a settler on Thursday.
According to media reports, Israel is insisting that more than a hundred of the militants to be released should be sent into exile in Gaza or abroad, rather than be allowed to return to their West Bank homes.
Avi Dichter, a member of the Knesset and former head of the Shin Bet security agency, said a deal was imminent and Israelis would “have to learn to live” with the heavy price that would be paid for Cpl Shalit’s release.