Palestinians cool to expected Israeli offer

JERUSALEM – Palestinian officials are rejecting an expected offer from Israel's prime minister to partially freeze West Bank settlement construction, even before it is made public.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office is refusing to comment on Israeli reports that he will announce the freeze later Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Israel TV said the freeze would last for 10 months.

The plan would apply only to the West Bank and not include Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Palestinians claim both areas for a future independent state.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says any freeze that does not include east Jerusalem is unacceptable.

The Palestinians have refused to reopen peace talks with Israel until it halts all settlement construction.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ Prisoner swap talks between Hamas and Israel have hit a snag over some of the top militants the Islamic group wants freed and a deal is unlikely in the coming days, Hamas officials said Wednesday.

Israel is objecting to some of the names put forward by Hamas, a senior official of the militant group familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. He said the German mediator shuttling between the sides has presented an alternative list of names provided by Israel, and Hamas leaders were studying it.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were ongoing and at a sensitive point. The sober assessment came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also cautioned that a deal was not a sure thing.

Israeli officials, also speaking anonymously, said they did not expect a breakthrough in the coming days.

Israeli and Hamas officials have both expressed cautious optimism in recent days, raising speculation that after more than three years of efforts, a deal was near to exchange captive Israeli soldier Sgt. Gilad Schalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Schalit was seized by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid in 2006. Hamas is demanding the release of top militants and political leaders serving lengthy sentences for involvement in deadly attacks on Israelis.

Hamas officials refused to say which names were holding up the deal. But the London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat said they included Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas' military wing in the West Bank and mastermind of a Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed 11 people in 2002 and Abdullah Barghouti, a mastermind of several suicide bombings serving several dozen life sentences.

Hamas appears to be demanding the release of Abbas Sayid as well, a planner of a 2002 suicide bombing at a hotel that killed 30 people celebrating the Jewish Passover holiday, according to lawyer Jawad Immawi, a senior official in the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs ministry, which employs many of the lawyers who represent high-level inmates.

Immawi told the AP that all three militants had quietly agreed to be deported from the Palestinian territories if they are included. It was not clear, however, whether Israel would agree to release them.

Egyptian-mediated negotiations over Schalit have repeatedly broken down, but took a positive turn when a German mediator become involved earlier this year.

"Optimism is not a part of our political dictionary," a Hamas legislator in Gaza, Salah Bardwil, said Wednesday. "The German mediator is serious, but it's too soon to say if a deal has been prepared or if there's progress."

Later Wednesday, Israel's security cabinet, a group of top ministers and security chiefs, was set to convene in Jerusalem for a prescheduled meeting aimed at discussing Palestinian issues. There was no specific word as to what Wednesday's agenda would be, but the emerging Schalit deal is expected to be raised.

Israel holds more than 7,500 Palestinians in prison, and virtually every Palestinian family has a relative, friend or neighbor who has spent time behind bars, making prisoner releases an emotional issue.

But prisoner releases also touch a raw nerve in Israel, where arguments rage between those who see the government as caving in to violence against those who think the country must do everything it can to rescue its soldiers.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Web sites, newspapers and radio stations have been obsessively following the deal and highlighting the suffering of Palestinian families nervously waiting to find out if their loved ones will be included in a deal.

In the West Bank, the family of Hamed, the jailed militant commander, said they still had no firm word on whether he would be included in the deal.

His brother, Naim Hamed, pleaded to Hamas to bring the prisoner home. "Be strong in your demands, give joy to mothers like my mother who hasn't seen her son in more than 11 years," he said.

_____

AP correspondents Mohammed Daraghmeh and Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.