TEL AVIV - Captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is to be swapped for 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, will be handed over to Egypt rather than the Red Cross, a senior Hamas official said Saturday. The official for Hamas, the militant organization which runs the Gaza Strip and is holding Shalit, told Israel Radio that the swap would take place on the border between the Strip and Egypt's Sinai peninsula. Shalit will be handed over only after the prisoners being released in the first stage of the swap arrive at the point where the exchange is to take place. The exact date of the swap has still not been released. Israeli envoy David Meidan is set to fly to Cairo late Saturday for talks, possibly though an intermediary, with Hamas officials to iron out the final technicalities of the exchange. Shalit was snatched during a cross-border raid carried out by Hamas and two other Palestinian militias from the Gaza Strip on June 25, 2006. Under the deal to free him - announced earlier this week - Israel will release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, 477 of them, including 27 women, in the first stage, and 550 others at a later date.
