Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, offered Israel a 30-year truce in 1997, the mediator who arranged Yassin’s release from prison has said. Efraim Halevy, an ex-Mossad operative who was called in to resolve an Israel-Jordan crisis after a botched assassination attempt against a Hamas leader in Jordan in 1997, made the disclosure on Tuesday in an interview on Israel TV. Halevy was a confidante of Jordan’s King Hussein, and he suggested releasing yassin from Israeli prison as the price for freedom for six Mossad agents captured in the abortive attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. Yassin was imprisoned in 1989. Halevy said that just before the Mashaal affair, ‘‘Yassin brought up the idea of a ceasefire of 30 years between Israel and the Palestinians.’’ —(AP)
