The father of an Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip for more than three years said he expects a government decision “very soon” on a prisoner-swap deal with the Islamic Hamas movement for his son’s release.

Gilad Shalit’s father, Noam, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after senior government ministers held talks in Jerusalem on a proposed deal, Israel Army Radio said. The ministers began meeting again at 8 p.m. local time, Channel Two television said.

“I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic” that a deal will be approved, Noam Shalit said.

Gilad Shalit, 23, was seized by Hamas militants in an attack on an Israeli army outpost on the border with Gaza on June 25, 2006. Egypt has been trying to broker a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas for more than a year and was later joined by Germany. Israel balked at Hamas demands earlier this year to free hundreds of prisoners in exchange for Shalit.

If the senior ministers approve a deal for Shalit, Netanyahu has the option to ask the full Cabinet for its backing, said Avraham Diskin, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Netanyahu said on Dec. 12 that he would allow a parliamentary discussion on the deal once its details were made public.

Shalit’s captivity has been an emotional as well as a political issue in Israel, where the army pledges to make every effort to leave no soldier in enemy hands.

Too Extreme

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas in March because he said the group’s demands were too extreme.

At the time, Olmert’s office said the prisoners whose release Hamas sought, included Abdullah Barghouti and Mohammed Hassan Armaan. Barghouti was convicted of organizing a 2001 suicide bombing that killed 15 people at a Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, while Armaan was found guilty of planning attacks including a 2002 bombing on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem campus that killed seven people.

Hamas blamed Olmert for the failure of the talks, saying its position had not changed from the moment of Shalit’s capture.

The only contact between Shalit, who holds Israeli and French citizenship, and the outside world during his captivity was three letters, an audio tape, and a DVD that Israel received on Oct. 2 in return for releasing 20 female Palestinian prisoners.

“I have been waiting and hoping for a long time for my freedom,” Shalit said in the DVD that was broadcast on Israeli television. He urged Netanyahu not to “waste an opportunity to make a deal whose result is that I can finally realize my dream of being freed.”

‘Every Effort’

Noam Shalit criticized the Olmert government for not making “every effort” to free his son.

Israel sealed its borders with Gaza and restricted the flow of goods into the coastal enclave in 2007 after Hamas seized full control of the area and ousted forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In December last year, Israel launched a three-week military incursion into Gaza aimed at deterring rocket fire at its southern towns and cities.

The Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 1,450 Palestinians were killed during the military operation, while Israel puts the number at 1,166. The army said 13 Israelis died in the violence, and a total of 24 have been killed in rocket and mortar attacks since they started in 2001.

Terrorist Organization

Hamas, which has the backing of Iran and Syria, is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union as well as Israel.

Israel has agreed to prisoner exchange deals in the past. In July 2008, Israel released five Lebanese prisoners in return for the bodies of two soldiers captured by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement two years earlier in a cross-border raid that sparked a 33-day war between the two sides.

In a 2004 prisoner swap with Hezbollah, Israel exchanged about 400 Palestinian detainees and the bodies of 59 Lebanese for one Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers.