Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    GAZA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A Hamas leader Thursday denied receiving an Israeli message urging the Islamic movement to diminish its demands to free an Israeli soldier for a number of Palestinian prisoners.

    "The negotiations to achieve the prisoner exchange deal are frozen and we did not receive any message via the Egyptian mediator regarding the reducing of the demands," said Mahmoud Zahar, former Hamas foreign minister.

    Hamas and two aligned groups captured the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit from his base near Gaza Strip in 2006. Hamas demands Israel to release more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for the soldier.

    Zahar explained that his movement withdrew from the negotiations "because Israel did not commit itself to the articles" of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

    Egypt brokered the six-month deal in June to restore calmness in Gaza and ease the blockade that Israel imposed on the territory when Hamas took it over last year.

    "As Israel escapes from the lull, it has to pay the price of its delaying, aggression and the siege it puts on the Palestinian people and the Gaza Strip," Zahar said. "There are no talks between us and Egypt on the swap."

    Before they stopped, the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel, in their height, focused the difference on the names of prisoners that Hamas demanded to release.

    At the time, Israel made it clear it will not free Palestinians who were involved in killing Israelis. Most of the names on Hamas' list belonged to prisoners of this category.