One of the groups that helped capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit said Friday his location and circumstances of capture would not be revealed even after next week's exchange of prisoners Maan reported
Popular Resistance Committees spokesman Abu Mujahed said the circumstances of Shalit's capture would be kept secret, despite earlier promising to release a video of the captive.
Hamas leader Ismail Radwan, meanwhile, said the Islamist movement was satisfied with the swap deal, which will free Shalit in exchange for some 1,027 Palestinian prisoners over the course of several weeks.
Radwan added that Hamas did not have any knowledge of the place Shalit was being kept. It is a security matter and the PRC has the final say to reveal or not reveal where he was kept, he said.
Israel's chief negotiator David Meidan is due to return to Cairo on Saturday evening to finalize the details of the prisoner swap, working through Egyptian mediators, public radio said Friday.
Shalit is to return to Israel on Tuesday at the same time as 450 Palestinian prisoners are freed if the terms of a swap deal are respected, a senior Israeli official said on Friday.
"We hope that the timetable laid out in the agreement will be respected and that Gilad Shalit will return home on Tuesday," said the official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
The first tranche of prisoners would be released at the same time, the official said.
The Israel Prisons Authority is expected to publish on its website the official list of detainees to be freed on Saturday or Sunday, the radio said, in a move which will give the public 48 hours to lodge any legal appeals before the Supreme Court.
The court, Israel's highest judicial authority, has never before challenged any government-approved deal for the exchange of prisoners. The handover can only take place after the appeals period has expired.
Details of the mechanics remained sketchy on Friday, with Israeli press reports saying Shalit was likely to be taken from Gaza into the Sinai peninsula, from where he would be transferred to Israel via one of the crossings.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper said 27 women prisoners would be freed as Shalit crossed into Sinai, while the main group of 450 would be released as he crossed the border into Israel.
Shalit was then expected to be flown to a military base to be reunited with his family and undergo an initial medical check before returning to his home in northern Israel.
The long-awaited deal was announced late on Tuesday, when Israel and Hamas announced a prisoner swap agreement which will see 1,027 detainees released -- 450 of them in the coming week, and another 550 within two months.
Another 27 female prisoners will also be released, officials said.
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