Olmert to Egypt: FO

Israel will not agree to an Egyptian proposal for a truce with the Gaza Strip unless it includes the issue of arms smuggling and the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday.

Olmert told visiting Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman during their meeting in Jerusalem that the proposal could not be adopted in its current form.

A central hitch in a potential deal is the fate of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier captured by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid in June 2006, and held in Gaza since then. Talks on a prisoner swap have stalled over disagreements about which prisoners Israel would release in return. Hamas wants hundreds of Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons, some of them for murder, to be released.

"Shalit is an integral element of the situation," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said. "Hamas cannot expect Israel to sit by idly when they are holding a young serviceman hostage now for almost two years."

Noam Shalit, the captive soldier's father, insisted that any deal include his son. "I cannot imagine that the state of Israel would agree to any kind of arrangement or understandings without Gilad being freed," he told Israel Radio.