Israel to free women for video proving Shalit is alive

Father of Israeli corporal held hostage for three years praises German negotiators

(AP, EPA)

Israel is to release 20 female Palestinian prisoners in return for new video footage proving definitively that Gilad Shalit, the army corporal who was abducted more than three years ago by Gaza militants, is alive.

The move, which may be made tomorrow, is the first concrete evidence of real, if slow, progress in the German-mediated negotiations for the release of the 23-year-old corporal and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including Hamas ones, held in Israeli jails.

An official statement released by the mediators in Jerusalem yesterday said that mediators had told Israel it would receive "updated and unequivocal proof regarding the well-being and status of Gilad Shalit".

In return, Israel said it would release the 20 women prisoners as a "confidence building measure". All but one are from the West Bank, while one is from Gaza.

The Shalit family welcomed "the significant achievement by the current negotiating team, under the leadership of Haggai Hadas, and German and Egyptian mediators", but said that it was just a "first step in the right direction to sign a deal for Gilad's release, and [we] will not rest or be silent until [we] see Gilad back home." They added that "both sides must steadily continue to advance the recently started [negotiations] without neglect".

The official statement issued by Israel after its security cabinet meeting was careful to cite the Egyptians' work in seeking to broker an exchange, but the mediation efforts have been given fresh impetus by the involvement of German intelligence officials. German experts also played a role in the exchange of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners for the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers killed by Hizbollah in the attack which triggered the 2006 Lebanon war.

Noam Shalit, the father of Cpl Shalit who was seized near the Israel-Gaza border crossing Kerem Shalom in June 2006, has gone out of his way to praise the efforts of the German mediators. Their role was also highlighted yesterday by a Palestinian source familiar with the negotiations who said that while Egyptian mediators had acted as "a messenger" between the two sides, the German mediators had been more "creative" in their approach.

While Cpl Shalit was abducted by three groups – including Hamas – in a cross-border raid which killed two other soldiers, Hamas has been leading the indirect negotiations with Israel and is thought to be in control of whether and when he is released.

Abu Mujahed, a spokesman for another of the two groups said yesterday that the one-minute video to be released to the Israelis would show Cpl Shalit to be "alive and moving." According to Israeli television, the video has already been seen by the German mediators.

The previous government of Ehud Olmert said that it would not lift the blockade of Gaza until Cpl Shalit was released. International diplomats are hopeful that his release would lead to an immediate easing of the embargo. Noam Shalit has repeatedly and vainly called for the Red Cross to be allowed access to his son.