JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dismissed Israel’s top negotiator in Gaza truce talks for publicly criticizing his demand that Palestinian militants hand over a captured Israeli soldier before any deal is clinched, officials said Monday.
The move threatens to roil the talks just weeks before Olmert is succeeded by the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants Gaza’s Hamas rulers toppled and pro-bably would take a tougher line in the Egyptian-brokered truce negotiations.
A truce deal has implications beyond cementing the informal Jan. 18 cease-fire that ended Israel’s war on Hamas. Without it, there is little chance of advancing already troubled talks to reconcile feuding Palestinian factions.
Olmert abruptly announced last week that Israel would not reopen Gaza’s long-blockaded borders — the main Israeli concession sought by Hamas — unless Hamas-affiliated militants first freed Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was seized in a June 2006 cross-border raid.
Amos Gilad, the fired negotiator, opposed linking the truce deal with Schalit and criticized Olmert’s strategy in an interview last week with the Israeli newspaper Maariv. After Gilad refused to apologize, Olmert gave him the boot, aides said Monday.
Hamas shrugged off the development, with spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, saying Israel “never intended to reach any agreement or closure on a truce or a prisoner exchange.”
A truce deal is key not only to Gaza’s fate but also to any chance for a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and the Fatah movement of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who controls only the West Bank after his forces were routed in Gaza.
Meanwhile Monday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit Israel and the West Bank next week.
The Israeli officials said Clinton will arrive in Israel on March 2 for two days of meetings with the country’s top leaders.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the visit had not been announced by the State Department, which has not released Clinton’s schedule for next week.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to Abbas, said Clinton also would visit the West Bank during her stay.
