Palestinian groups involved in the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit denied that progress has been made in talks for a prisoner exchange deal with Israel.
"Reports that a deal is near are baseless speculations. We deny all recent reports on the issue and call on everyone to ignore reports in the press until a confirmation from groups who carried out the operation," representatives of the groups told the Israeli-Arab website Boukra. (Roee Nahmias)