Israel accuses Iran of blocking release

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni sits in front of an image of missing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit during a meeting with the foreign diplomatic corp in Jerusalem, June 2006. The exiled political supremo of the Palestinian movement Hamas has accused Israel of refusing to free Arab prisoners in exchange for the release of Shalit, according to a report.(AFP/File/Pedro Ugarte)

October 20, 2006

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS -Israel accused the Iranian government of paying $50 million to block a deal that would have freed an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas-linked militants who crossed from Gaza into Israel on June 25. Hamas and Iran dismissed the accusation as untrue.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman told the Security Council on Thursday that "we heard news" earlier in the day that Tehran bribed Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal "to sabotage the negotiations on the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and prevent his release."

Gillerman later refused to divulge the basis of the allegation or provide details, saying only that "we have every reason to believe that the Iranian regime has bribed Khaled Mashaal."

Iranian diplomat Mansour Sadeghi told the council his government "categorically rejected" all allegations against his country made by Israel, dismissing Gillerman's allegations as "baseless and absurd."

He said Gillerman's allegations were an attempt to divert attention from Israel's "aggression, occupation and state terrorism," and its defiance of Security Council resolutions.

According to a report Thursday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, which cited anonymous sources from a Western country, the deal was foiled when an Iranian delegation met Mashaal in Damascus and offered him $50 million to block it.

Mashaal, who lives in exile in Damascus, accepted the money and ratcheted up his demands for Shalit's release, the report said, deadlocking the negotiations.

"If this is the way in which Iran threatens humanitarian situations," Gillerman said, "I shudder to think about the lengths to which Iran will go to undermine a diplomatic one, and achieve its dangerous regional aspirations and nightmarish and megalomaniacal dreams of nuclear capability."

Osama Hamdan, Hamas' representative in Lebanon, said in a telephone interview on Friday that the report "is an obvious Israeli lie."

"Everybody knows that the Israeli soldier was captured in order to exchange him with Palestinian prisoners, so, the issue has no relationship with money, or any other matter," Hamdan said. "The issue is related to the release of Palestinians captives."

Israel has long been targeting Mashaal. In 1997, Israel botched an assassination attempt in Jordan. Two Mossad agents injected Mashaal with poison, but were caught, and as Mashaal lay dying in a Jordanian hospital, King Hussein of Jordan forced Israel to provide the antidote in return for the release of the Mossad agents.

In June, then-Justice Minister Haim Ramon said Mashaal is a target for assassination for ordering Shalit's kidnapping.

Alvaro de Soto, the U.N.'s Mideast envoy, told the Security Council that Egyptian officials are leading diplomatic efforts to free Shalit "and report that a package is on the table designed to address both parties' concerns, but the captors say they seek additional guarantees."

The package reportedly involved a swap of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners jailed by Israel for Shalit.