Israeli officials say there are no plans to release any Palestinian prisoners before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Saturday, unless a captured Israeli soldier is returned.

Israel holds an estimated 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails, and usually frees a small number of them as a goodwill gesture at Muslim holiday time.

Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was taken captive in June during an attack on a southern Israeli military post. It is believed he is still being held by militants affiliated with the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party.
(Associated Press)

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had suggested the traditional release could happen this weekend when he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a few days ago.

But officials now say the cabinet is unlikely to support the move before the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier. It is believed he is still being held by Palestinian militants.

"I think that a gesture that in normal times is accepted at holiday time must not happen today because it would be misinterpreted," Zeev Boim, an Israeli cabinet minister, told Israel Radio.

One of the Hamas-linked groups holding Shalit said Thursday that progress has been made toward a prisoner exchange, but didn't say when a swap might take place.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and Shalit was taken during a June 25 cross-border raid that sparked weeks of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas-linked militants.

Report details deaths of Palestinians, Israelis

That fighting was largely responsibly for a sharp increase in the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in the past year, according to a report released by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem on Friday.

Israeli security forces have killed 660 Palestinians so far this year, up from fewer than 200 in 2005, the report said.

By comparison, the report said, the number of Israeli civilians and military personnel killed by Palestinians dropped sharply in 2006, falling by more than half to 23.

It said about half the Palestinians killed — 332 in all — were not taking part in hostilities at the time they died.

Most of the Palestinian deaths were in the Gaza Strip in the second half of 2006, after Hamas took Shalit captive and Iraeli troops returned to Gaza in a military operation designed to secure his release.

The report said 405 Palestinians, 88 of them minors, were killed during this period in the Gaza Strip alone.

With files from the Associated Press