Gaza City: Hamas officials were hashing out a strategy with Egyptian intelligence officers on Saturday how to transfer an Israeli soldier they have held captive for the past five years to Israel, a senior Hamas official said.

How to transfer Sgt Gilad Schalit is expected to be the trickiest part of a prisoner swap deal announced Tuesday that will see Israel release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldier, who Hamas-backed militants have kept in hiding since capturing him in a 2006 cross-border raid.

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Keeping the soldier`s place of captivity a secret for the past five years is widely recognised as a significant achievement for Hamas and the other Palestinian factions that helped seized him, and the groups are wary of spoiling that success with a false step now. Hamas officials discussed the issue with Egyptian intelligence figures in Cairo today, a senior Hamas official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the press.

He would not say what strategy was agreed upon; only that "different scenarios" were under consideration. The general plan, however, is to transfer Schalit from Hamas custody to Egypt, and Cairo would then hand the soldier over to Israel. The International Committee of the Red Cross will be present for Schalit`s hand over. But the organisation will not have a role in ferrying him out of Gaza, the official said.

PTI