OPT: Israel to up pressure on Hamas after prisoner negotiation collapse

Tel Aviv_(dpa) _ Israel plans to increase its pressure on Hamas after indirect negotiations broke down on a prisoners exchange with the radical Islamist movement ruling Gaza, Israeli media reported Wednesday.

Outgoing Premier Ehud Olmert has formed a ministerial committee which will look into how Israel can legally worsen the conditions in which Hamas prisoners are being held.

Israel will also discuss again reducing the volume of goods allowed through its border crossings with Gaza to the bear minimum needed to avoid a humanitarian crisis. Israel had allowed in larger amounts of humanitarian aid during and since its 22-day offensive in Gaza, launched December 27 in a bid to curb rocket attacks from the strip.

Among others, the committee will examine whether it is legal to strip Hamas militants jailed in Israel of certain rights and privileges, including visits by family members and Red Cross representatives. They also receive newspapers in Hebrew and Arabic, as well as television sets, radios and kettles in their cells.

As part of the pressure, Ofer Dekel, Olmert's envoy charged with leading the indirect negotiations in a prisoners exchange with Hamas, plans to distribute in the prisons a list of which prisoners Israel was prepared to release in exchange for Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, held captive in Gaza since June 2006. Israel will place responsibility on Hamas for their continued incarceration.

Olmert had hoped to secure a prisoners exchange deal with Hamas during his final days in office, before prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu forms a new government following February 10 elections.

But he announced on Tuesday that the negotiations had broken down, saying he had "red lines" which he would not cross.

Olmert's office late Tuesday released a partial list of those prisoners whom he had agreed to free and those whom he had refused to let go.

Hamas had demanded more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit, including 450 names determined by it. Of those 450 names, Israel had agreed to free some 320. But the remainder, Israel says, are hardcore militants whom Olmert said he will not release.

The list of names of detainees Olmert would not release includes Abas Sayad, 43, a Hamas militant from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm. Sayad has admitted on camera from his Israeli prison that he was involved in the March 2002 suicide bombing on the eve of the Jewish Passover in a Netanya hotel, north of Tel Aviv, calling it "successful."

One of the deadliest bombings in Israel, it killed 30 people who had sat down for the Passover meal. Sayad was sentenced to 37 life sentences, one for each death in the suicide bombings he helped orchestrate. So far, he has served seven.

Other Hamas militants involved in major suicide attacks and serving multiple life sentences are also on the list. dpa ok mga