GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas officials were devising a strategy with Egyptian intelligence officers Saturday for safely transferring an Israeli soldier they have held captive for the past five years to Israel, a senior Hamas official said.
The mechanics of how to transfer Sgt. Gilad Schalit are expected to be one of the trickiest parts of the prisoner swap deal announced Tuesday in which Israel will release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldier, captured by Hamas-backed militants in a 2006 cross-border raid and kept in hiding since.
The militants are eager to keep secret the location where they have held Schalit, no easy feat in a tiny sliver of territory crammed with 1.6 million people.
However unlikely it seems, some militants involved in hiding Schalit also said they feared Israeli forces might seize the soldier if they knew of his location before he was spirited out, a senior Hamas official said. They are also on guard for the slim possibility that other militants along the transfer route could try to harm the soldier.
Hamas officials discussed the issue with Egyptian intelligence figures in Cairo on Saturday, the Hamas official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press. He would not say what strategy was agreed upon, only that "different scenarios" were under consideration.
The general plan, however, is to transfer Schalit from Hamas custody to Egypt. Cairo would then hand the soldier over to Israel.
The International Committee of the Red Cross will be present for Schalit's handover. But the organization will not have a role in ferrying him out of Gaza, the official said.
He would not say when Schalit would be transferred to Egyptian custody or from where. He said the Israeli would not be handed over to Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Schalit is expected to be returned to Israel on Tuesday, but it is not clear whether the whole operation to transfer him from Gaza to Egypt, and then back home, will occur on the same day.
The spokesman for a smaller Palestinian militant faction also involved in Schalit's captivity said the handover would have several steps.
Members of several Palestinian committees would check the identities of released Palestinian prisoners, said Mohammed al-Barem of the Popular Resistance Committees. He did not say where they would do this — in Israel, or in Egypt.
Once they confirm the prisoners' identities, they will be transferred in buses to the Egyptian Sinai desert.
Once they reach the Sinai, the procedures to release Schalit would begin, he said.
"They will hand over the captive soldier simultaneously, without announcement, and in secret, with strong security procedures by the factions holding (Schalit)," al-Barem said.
Once that is accomplished, the Palestinian prisoners meant to be released into Gaza would be taken to the Rafah crossing.
From there, Palestinian officials will escort them to Gaza City for a massive celebration.
Israel is expected to release around 450 Palestinian prisoners on the same day that Schalit is released.
Prisoners headed to the West Bank are typically left at Israeli checkpoints scattered throughout the territory. Waiting Palestinian buses ferry them back home.
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Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
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