Hamas official: Qatar, Turkey to host prisoners
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 17, 2011 - 12:00am

Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouq said on Monday that three countries are willing to host Palestinian detainees set to be released under a recent exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. Marzouq, deputy head of the Hamas politburo, told the London based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat that Qatar and Turkey had agreed to host exiled prisoners. Al-Hayat mentioned that Syria could also be among the countries willing to receive released detainees. Turkish media said Friday that Turkey would accept all those exiled abroad.

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Israel Releases Names of 477 Prisoners to Be Freed in Trade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Ethan Bronner, Stephen Farrell - (Analysis) October 16, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel on Sunday released the names of the first 477 Palestinian prisoners that it will exchange for a soldier held by the militant faction Hamas, and the list revealed why the country has found the trade so wrenching: a majority of the inmates were convicted of manslaughter, attempted murder or intentionally causing death.

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Hamas and Israel realize cooperation is mutually beneficial
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - (Analysis) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The deal between Hamas and Israel for the release of 1,027 Palestinian detainees and one captured Israeli soldier is the most dramatic but not the only sign of cooperation between the two enemies. Hamas has virtually halted rocket fire at Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel is spending millions of dollars to expand a commercial crossing into the territory while it loosens its blockade of the coastal enclave and its 1.5 million residents.

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Prisoner swap deal with Israel serves Hamas interests
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Emad Drimly, Osama Radi - (Analysis) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

Five years after the indirect talks with Israel to reach a prisoner swap deal, observers believe that the timing of hammering out the deal to release 1,027 prisoners for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is apparently calculated by the Hamas movement to serve its interests. As the deal to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners was declared on Tuesday, the leaders of the Islamic movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, described the deal "a great victory."

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Behind the scenes: How the Schalit deal came about
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Katz - (Analysis) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The main breakthrough came in July. After five years of negotiations, Hamas forwarded a letter to Israel in which, for the first time, it outlined its final terms for a prisoner swap for Gilad Schalit. Three months earlier, David Meidan, a former senior Mossad operative, had been appointed chief mediator to the Schalit talks by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Upon receiving the letter, he immediately got to work.

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Transfer of freed Palestinian prisoners 'begins Tuesday'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

One of the groups involved in the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit said Thursday that the transfer of some 450 Palestinian prisoners will begin Tuesday. Spokesman Abu Mujahed of the Popular Resistance Committees said Thursday that as soon as the detainees are released, officials will check each one to make sure they are among those listed in the deal. Once the prisoners are checked, the factions holding Shalit will release him too.

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The myth of Hamas' victory
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - (Analysis) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

In the spring of 1996, on the eve of the face-off between Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu for the premiership, the head of Military Intelligence said the Iranians wanted Netanyahu to win. The MI chief sought to convey that amid the wave of Hamas suicide bombings and Peres' peace talks with the Syrians, Bibi was good for the peace objectors.

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In Shalit deal, Israel crossed its own red lines
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The unofficial list of names of prisoners to be released in exchange for Gilad Shalit, which was posted Thursday on Hamas websites, reveals that Israel indeed crossed red lines in negotiating with Hamas. These are not just prisoners with "blood on their hands." Rather, the list includes some of the founders of the Hamas military wing, such as Zaher Jabarin and Yihya Sanawar, and prisoners involved in some of the most ignoble terror attacks in Israel, including the 1989 attack on bus 405 and the 1994 abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldier Nachshon Wachsman.

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The reasons for Hamas’s ‘flexibility’ on Schalit swap
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Herb Keinon - (Opinion) October 14, 2011 - 12:00am

The framework deal for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit that the cabinet approved on Tuesday evening – 1,000 for one – is pretty much the same one the German mediator put on the table two years ago. What changed are some of the key names on the list, and where the Palestinian prisoners will go after their release. Until a couple of months ago, Hamas – according to Israeli officials – was insisting that all the names it put forward be freed.

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Fatah official says meeting with Hamas chief 'positive'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
October 13, 2011 - 12:00am

Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmad said Wednesday that his meeting in Cairo with Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal was "positive" and that reconciliation talks would restart "soon." Al-Ahmad, who heads the Fatah delegation in talks with Hamas, told reporters after the meeting that the talks had not been planned, but were arranged at the last minute as the officials happened to be in the Egyptian capital. During the meeting, Mashaal phoned President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and expressed his full supported the president's recent bid for full UN membership, al-Ahmad said.

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