By Dan Williams JERUSALEM, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Israel is "very near" to agreeing a prisoner swap with Hamas, though it remains unclear which jailed Palestinians will be released, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Tuesday. Hamas leaders were in Cairo to advance the Egyptian- and German-brokered negotiations under which Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip, would go free in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israel's prisons. Officials close to the talks said on Monday that Israel had agreed to include some 160 inmates whom it had previously balked at freeing. Both sides have avoided publicly naming prisoners on the roster and played down prospects for imminent breakthroughs. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's industry and trade minister but not a member of the inner security cabinet deliberating over the prisoner swap, said a deal would be expedited by broad-based political support in a country where Shalit is a cause celebre. "I am very happy that this deal is moving toward completion in the very near future," Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Army Radio. Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants who tunnelled into Israel from the Gaza Strip in 2006, and Israeli leaders have said there could be no major easing of a blockade on the territory before his release. Arab media have predicted a breakthrough by Friday's Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, accused Israel of stirring up such speculation in a bid to generate Palestinian popular pressure on the movement to speed up a deal. The release of prisoners is highly emotive for Palestinians, who see their nearly 11,000 brethren held in Israeli jails as fighters against foreign occupation. Ben-Eliezer said that he, like most other Israeli cabinet members, had yet to be presented with the names of jailed Palestinians who would be freed. Some Israeli rightists oppose amnesty for leaders of armed groups battling the Jewish state. PRICE OF A DEAL Ben-Eliezer, an ex-general and former defence chief, is among those demanding that Prime Minister Benjanmin Netanyahu's coalition government relax its terms in order to recover Shalit. "Are we closer today than ever? My answer is, certainly, positive. Obviously the deal will have a price. Obviously there will be names of heavy-duty murderers. The government will decide, and I hope the decision will be positive," he said. Netanyahu, who has barred Israeli officials involved in the negotiations from discussing them in public, said on Monday that there was no deal in place and that Israel awaited "clarification" of the latest Hamas demands. In Gaza, the ruling Islamist faction said it was premature to expect imminent agreement and blamed Israel for any holdup. "We in Hamas are continuing our efforts, through the parties involved in the swap file, to overcome the obstacles placed by the Israeli enemy," it said in a statement. Israel, having invoked stringent censorship on its own press to contain reports on the negotiations, has levelled similar charges against Hamas, which last month accelerated the talks by publishing a "proof of life" video of 23-year-old Shalit. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Samia Nakhoul) ((dan.williams@thomsonreuters.com, +20 2 2578 3290, Reuters Messaging: dan.williams.reuters.com@reuters.net))
A Palestinian walks past a smuggling tunnel destroyed in an Israeli air strike near the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip November 24, 2009. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA POLITICS ...
