Gilad Shalit's Attorneys To Meet With Kidnappers

Well, Hamas is denying that they are planning to meet with two French attorneys who represent abducted Israeli soldier, Gilad Shilat, but since when has Hamas ever told the truth?
Here's what the French are saying: that Shalit's captors forwarded a letter to them from Shalit showing that he is still in good health and in return, the French attorneys agreed to come to Gaza and speak with Hamas about conditions for release.
Here is what one of the attorneys said:

"This dialogue led to an official invitation from the Hamas leadership to go to Gaza to meet them for talks to try to find a reasonable solution to this painful matter," he said, adding he and fellow lawyer Stephane Zerbib would leave on Saturday.

Now, my take on this? These French lawyers ARE going to Gaza and they ARE going to meet with Hamas. Hamas is putting up a smoke screen here - they are in a bad spot with Shalit. They want to continue holding Gilad Shalit as much as they want George Bush to visit again. The longer they hold Shalit, the greater the chance that something can go wrong. Believe me, Hamas wants Shalit out of their hands quick but they want to save face as much as possible and perhaps get some cash out of the deal.
Now, if I was one of the French attorneys, I'd meet with Hamas and then phone in the location of the meeting as soon as I left to the Israelis.

Here's the full story from Haaretz.

Shalit`s French lawyers say planning to meet his kidnappers

Two French lawyers representing Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by Palestinian militants in June 2006, will travel to Gaza this week to discuss his fate with his kidnappers, a member of the family's legal team said on Tuesday. Hamas, one of the groups holding Shalit, denied planning to hold talks with the two lawyers. The lawyers told a Paris news conference that Hamas had forwarded a letter from Shalit, who also has French nationality, to his family in recent weeks and he appeared to be in reasonable health, mentally and physically

Shalit, then 19, was abducted by Palestinian gunmen from Gaza during a cross-border raid in June 2006. Hamas has said it will not release him unless Israel meets its demand to free nearly 1,400 Palestinian prisoners, including 350 with life sentences. Israel has rejected these terms. A Hamas official said his organization had nothing to discuss with the lawyers. "We deny what those two lawyers have said. We have nothing to do with them or to talk to them about the Shalit affair," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said. "This is a unique issue that is being given a unique treatment. It seems that those two lawyers are carrying out media propaganda for their own interests," he added. Altit told journalists in Paris that some Hamas leaders had threatened to kill the Israeli soldier, but that the letter had reassured his family about his well-being. "Clearly he wrote it under the control, under the supervision of his jailers, his abductors," he said.