Olmert denies prisoner swap deal with Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today denied knowledge of an impending deal to swap Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants for the past two months.

“I read about it in the newspapers alone and know nothing of such a deal,” Olmert told parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee, according to meeting participants.

Committee member Ran Cohen said Olmert gave no further details during the closed session.

In recent days, Arab media have carried multiple accounts of a deal in the making. Over the weekend, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak disclosed that negotiations to secure Cpl. Gilad Shalit's release were ongoing.

Israel has publicly refused calls for a prisoner swap, but privately, Israel officials have said there are ongoing contacts with Egypt to win Shalit’s freedom. Officials said, however, that they were unaware of any breakthrough.

An Egyptian diplomat familiar with the negotiations said the Israelis and Palestinians still had not agreed on the number or names of prisoners to be released, and a deal was unlikely in the coming days.

In Gaza, officials with the ruling Hamas militant group said they had no details on an imminent deal.

Militants linked to Hamas captured Shalit on June 25 after tunnelling into southern Israel from Gaza and attacking an Israeli military post.

The raid touched off an ongoing Israeli offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza that has left more than 200 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, dead.