Hamas echoes PRC denial of deal to hand over videotape of Schalit

Hamas denied on Saturday a report in Asharq alawsat that it had agreed to submit to Israel a videotape of captive soldier Gilad Schalit in exchange for Israel allowing hundreds of residents of the Gaza Strip to make the haj pilgrimage to Mecca. A spokesman of Hamas's military wing told "the occupation not to dream of getting a message from Schalit," Army Radio reported. Earlier, the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the factions involved in Schalit's abduction in a cross-border raid in June 2006, also denied the report.