"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a far-reaching offer, unprecedented in scope, to bring about Gilad Shalit's release from captivity in Gaza," Minister of Environmental Protection Gilad Erdan said during the Knesset plenary on Tuesday.
Erdan was responding to a motion for the Knesset agenda marking five years since Shalit's abduction. "Netanyahu went as far as possible," Erdan said. "Our demand is that the arch-murderers released not be returned to Judea and Samaria," he added.
Erdan stressed that during every meeting with leaders abroad Netanyahu demands that Hamas release Gilad. "It is unacceptable that Shalit is rotting in prison, while Palestinian prisoners in Israel get family visits and other perks."
Meanwhile, Jordanian newspaper Al-Sabeel on Wednesday cited a Hamas leader saying that the organization's military wing had recently foiled an Israeli abduction attempt against one of its senior commanders.
According to the source, Israel planned to use this military leader as a bargaining chip in talks to free Shalit. The report did not identify which Hamas militant Israel planned to abduct but said that Israel's Mistaravim unit (an elite counter-terrorism unit in which soldiers disguise themselves as Arabs) had managed to infiltrate the Strip with the help of collaborators.
However, the source said, the senior militant was given advance warning and managed to leave the Gaza Strip.
