Israel repeats truce terms

Agence France-Presse

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His demand was swiftly rejected by Hamas's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal, who again accused Israel of backtracking on the terms of a proposed long-term truce by linking the lifting of the blockade to the soldier's release.

"Israel is responsible for blocking Egypt's efforts to broker a truce by adding a new condition at the last minute," Meshaal said after talks with Arab League chief Amr Mussa.

"A truce can come about only in exchange for a lifting of the blockade and the reopening of the crossing points. It is unacceptable to combine the truce issue with the question of Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit," Meshaal said.

Egypt, which has been acting as intermediary in separate negotiations for a Gaza truce and for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails for Shalit, has also said that the two issues should be kept separate.

"Egypt will not change its position on the truce - the matter of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is a separate issue which can in no way be linked to the truce negotiations," the state-owned Egyptian daily Al-Ahram quoted President Hosni Mubarak as saying.

Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip in June 2006.