The head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, and deputy head of its military wing Marwan Issa traveled to Cairo Dec. 1. Sources in the Hamas and Fatah movements told Al-Monitor that Issa’s presence was related to Egyptian efforts to cobble together an Israel-Hamas prisoner-exchange deal.

Issa, second-in-command to Mohammed al-Deif, is a member of the closed inner circle that conducted the negotiations for the 2011 release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas for five years. Since Sinwar was picked earlier this year to head Hamas in Gaza, Issa has been serving as liaison between the organization’s military and political wings. In essence, he took over from Sinwar, who was in charge of prisoner affairs before being appointed to the top job in the Gaza Strip. Ever since he himself was freed from an Israeli prison as part of the Shalit deal, Sinwar has placed a premium on the issue of Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Hamas is holding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who were killed during the Israel-Gaza war known as Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. It is also believed to be holding three Israelis — Avera Mengistu, Hisham al-Sayed and Jumaa Abu Ghanima, each of whom crossed from Israel into Gaza of their own accord between 2014 and 2016. Hamas has since refused to provide any information about them.

The leaders of the Hamas military wing, not its political arm, are the ones conducting the actual negotiations on the return of the soldiers’ bodies and the release of the three civilians — and thus far Israel has rejected its terms. Their threshold demand is for Israel to free dozens of Palestinians released in the 2011 Shalit deal and subsequently rearrested after the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths in the West Bank.