Cairo - A deal on the exchange of Israeli and Hamas prisoners may come within the next 24 hours, a Hamas representative has told a leading Arabic-language daily.

The next 24 hours could prove "decisive" in Egyptian-mediated indirect talks between Israeli and Hamas in Cairo, an anonymous Hamas politician told the regional Arabic daily al-Hayat in remarks published Friday. The paper said a deal may be "imminent."

Israeli negotiators have made negotiations on a long-term truce with Hamas contingent on the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas captured more than 1,000 days ago.

Egyptian intelligence officials have been mediating indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel in a bid to reach a prisoner swap deal. On Thursday, Egypt's official MENA news agency cited an unnamed Egyptian official as saying that the pace of negotiations has accelerated in recent days.

An Egyptian official arrived in Israel Thursday, the official news agency reported, in a further sign that negotiations may be back on track.

Talks broke down last week, reportedly after Hamas demanded the release of some 1,400 Palestinian militants jailed in Israel and insisted on selecting the names of the first 450 to be released, who reportedly include militants on a "black list" of those Israel says helped plan some of Hamas' most deadly suicide attacks.

But on Friday, al-Hayat's Hamas source said both sides were showing "more flexibility" on the question of the prisoners on Israel's "black list."

On a parallel track, al-Hayat said that Omar al-Qenawi, assistant to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Sulieman, would arrive in Damascus on Friday for meetings with Syrian officials and the leaders of several Palestinian factions, including Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and senior Islamic Jihad politician Ramadan Shalah.

Fatah officials told the paper they believe al-Qenawi would seek to gain Syrian support for the details of Egypt's plan to reconcile rival Palestinian factions along a separate track of negotiations also being held in Cairo.

"The Palestinians need real support from Arab countries like Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia," Nabil Shaath, head of Fatah's delegation to the Cairo talks, told al-Hayat.

But al-Hayat's source in Islamic Jihad warned against looking at the accelerated pace of negotiations with too much optimism, saying that Cairo may be simply trying to convey the message to the Palestinians and the world that it has done all it can do, and that it is now up to the Palestinians to reach an agreement.

"The idea is to show that if the prisoner-swap agreement collapses, Egypt cannot be held responsible, and the Palestinians will take all the blame," he said.

"After all, Cairo took an unprecedented role, as witnessed by everyone," the source said. (dpa)