Hamas: Shalit mediator to start new round of talks next week
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - December 30, 2009 - 1:00am

The German mediator brokering a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will begin a new round of talks next week, a source in the Palestinian Islamist group said Wednesday. The comments came shortly after Hamas reportedly rejected the latest offer from Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in return for its corporal, who has been held in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for more than three years.

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Hamas: Israel refusing to free 4 senior prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Ali Waked - December 29, 2009 - 1:00am

The Hamas organization says Israel is refusing to release the "heaviest" prisoners as part of a possible prisoner exchange deal. The movement's official website on Tuesday mentioned the names of Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Saadat, Ibrahim Hamed and Abdullah Barghouti. Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said that there was no news on the talks aimed at securing kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit's release.

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Hamas's rhetoric of resistance masks new stance a year after Gaza war
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Rory McCarthy - December 28, 2009 - 1:00am

When Hamas held its annual anniversary celebrations in the centre of Gaza City it looked like a defiant and celebratory show. There was a male choir in camouflage fatigues singing on the stage, a sea of green flags in the crowd and wave after wave of self-congratulatory chanting: "Far and wide, Hamas is shaking the ground." A year after Israel's devastating three-week war in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamist movement which controls the strip is still very much in charge and unbowed.

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Reports: Hamas flexible on prisoner expulsion
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas is leaning toward accepting Israel’s demand to deport more than 100 prisoners in an exchange deal that would secure the release of a captured soldier, news reports said on Thursday. The Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal reported on Wednesday that Hamas would allow 123 prisoners to be deported in an exchange that would also see the release of some 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.

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Hamas likely to accept Israel offer on Shalit within days
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yuval Azoulay, Avi Issacharoff, Jack Khoury - December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Hamas announced on Wednesday that the German mediator involved in the talks to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit had delivered Israel's offer. Hamas' deputy political leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said that top officials in the group were studying Israel's offer and would respond to the German mediators within days. Media outlets in the Gaza Strip said that a Hamas delegation would head from Gaza to Cairo on Thursday, and then to Damascus, where they would meet with members of Hamas' political wing there to discuss their response to what Israel has put on the table.

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Year after Gaza war, Hamas says ready to fight Israel again
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

One year after Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said this week that the Islamist group would not shirk away from a new battle with Israel. "We do not wish for war. We wish for calm and peace for our people," Abu Ubaida, Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades spokesman told Reuters. "But if any battle is imposed on us, we are ready with all our manpower and equipment to confront any Zionist war, any crime and any attack regardless of scale," he added.

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Scars of conflict still raw in Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Financial Times
by Tobias Buck - December 24, 2009 - 1:00am

Until the day the soldiers came, Majed Abdullah al-Atamneh counted himself a fortunate man. He owned six houses on the eastern fringes of Abed Rabbo village in the northern Gaza Strip, three taxis and several acres of land planted with olive and lemon trees. All his sons and their families lived in the family compound, 56 men, women and children in total.

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IDF chief: Bringing Shalit back is a national mission
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Yuval Azoulay, Avi Issacharoff, Jonathan Lis, Barak Ravid - December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, reiterated on Wednesday that securing the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity was of the utmost importance to Israel. "Bringing back Gilad Shalit is a national mission, and both covert and overt actions are being carried out to bring him back," Ashkenazi told a gathering in Ashdod.

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Report: Israel refuses release of 7 prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
by Roee Nahmias - December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Western diplomatic sources told al-Hayat newspaper that Israel agreed to release 443 of the 450 prisoners Hamas has demanded be freed in the first phase of a prisoner exchange deal for the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. In addition, the sources said Israel has demanded that over 100 of the prisoners to be freed be banned from returning to the West Bank.

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Prisoners' families say deportation better than nothing
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
December 23, 2009 - 1:00am

Rumors of a prisoner release are notoriously hard on families of the detained. As the back-and-forth between Israel and Gaza factions continues at a heated pace, Ma’an spoke with the wives and children of some of Palestine’s most prominent detainees. Abla Sa’adat is the wife of one of the nine prisoners identified by Israeli media earlier in the week as one of the nine high-profile prisoners whose release the swap deal depends on.

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