CAIRO: Israel has softened its terms for a prisoner swap with Hamas and the two enemies are nearing a deal to exchange hundreds of Palestinian inmates for an Israeli soldier held in the Gaza Strip, officials said yesterday.

A delegation from Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, crossed into Egypt for a planned meeting with Egyptian security officials in Cairo to discuss the deal that Egypt and Germany have been mediating.

Officials close to the talks said Israel had agreed to include in the exchange for the soldier, Gilad Shalit, some 160 prisoners whose release it had previously vetoed.

Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants who tunnelled into Israel from the Gaza Strip in 2006. Israel has linked any major easing of its blockade on the territory to the soldier’s return home. “The Shalit episode is about to be closed,” one of the officials said.

Sources on both sides told Reuters there were hopes that a deal might be struck by the end of the week, when the holiday of Eid Al Adha begins.

In Jerusalem, Israeli government officials declined to comment on prospects for a deal with Hamas, a group that has rejected Western demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. “The efforts to win Gilad Shalit’s release are continuing and taking place outside the media spotlight. We have no intention of commenting beyond this,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told reporters: “This is too sensitive a time for talk. We have to anticipate and be prepared to carry out any possible and appropriate procedure to return Gilad home.”