Hamas: Shalit swap negotiations still ongoing

Senior Hamas officials on Tuesday said they would continue to discuss an Israeli proposal for a prisoner exchange deal that would free Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, after Al-Arabiya television reported the Islamist group had rejected the swap.

“The negotiations are still ongoing and continuing,” Osama Hamdan, the Hamas spokesman in Beirut, said.

Hamdan and Mohammed al-Nasr, of Hamas’ political bureau, both denied reports by Al-Arabiya satellite channel that the Islamist movement’s leadership in Syria had rejected key details of the swap proposal.

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