A number of days before the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead, Hamas turned to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, offering a video of Gilad Shalit as proof the soldier is still alive.

According to the daily HaMevaser, basing the report on the British Observer, Hamas offered the video but the prime minister sated Israel does not need the video to confirm its intelligence reports, stating without a doubt that the soldier was alive.

The Observer maintains that Hamas tried direct negotiations with Israel after the terror organization was dissatisfied with Egyptian mediation efforts.

The paper reports that Gershon Baskin, PhD, a founder of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information tried to contact a relative of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the hope of opening a direct channel of negotiations. Israel rejected the offer, stating it will not negotiate with terrorists.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)