Deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haneya on Thursday said Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit can be released if true intentions were available in the Israeli side.

"We are keen to end this case on the humanitarian and political basis, but everything is subject to the position of the other side (Israel)," Haneya told reporters in Gaza city.

"If true intentions are available, there will be a solution very soon," he added.

Haneya, whose administration has been controlling Gaza since June 2007, said Israel has to accept the demands of the Palestinian captors who kidnapped Shalit in a cross-border attack in 2006.

Hamas, along with two other Gaza militant groups, wants Israel to release some 1,000 prisoners in exchange for Shalit.

International delegations and envoys who visited Gaza after Israel ended a war there in January discussed Shalit's case with Hamas, but the Islamic movement told them over 11,000 Palestinian sheld by the Jewish state, said Haneya.

On Tuesday, former US President Jimmy Carter passed a verbal message to Shalit after he met Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip and called for an end to his case.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2009)