Officials from Hamas' military wing, including its leader Ahmed Jabri, departed for Cairo on Wednesday, marking an important development in a deal for the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" reported.
Jabri joined senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar, whose travel to Cairo was reported by Palestinian news agency Maan on Tuesday.
This constitutes a major development, as the last time Jabri traveled to Cairo was at the end of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's term when there were escalated hopes for a last-minute deal.
A Web site affiliated with Islamic Jihad on Wednesday reported that the head of German Foreign Intelligence (BND) Ernst Uhrlau has been brokering the prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.
Ayman Taha, a senior Hamas official, on Tuesday told Reuters: "There is nothing new except the German intervention, which caused things to move. But things have not yet reached a breakthrough."
Nevertheless, Haaretz learned that Hamas may be willing to show some flexibiliy in the exchange and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is close to concluding a deal with the Islamist group.
At the end of Olmert's term in March, Israel had refused to release 125 of the 450 prisoners Hamas was demanding in exchange for Shalit - those who committed the most serious offenses.
The two sides had also disagreed over how many prisoners from the West Bank would be sent to the Gaza Strip or abroad after their release.