The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is drawing up a new political plan in a bid to overcome a crisis escalating in the Palestinian territories, a PLC spokesman revealed on Thursday.

The spokesman for Hamas-dominated PLC Salah Bardaweel said that the initiative focuses on two important articles, which were lifting the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and stopping the Israeli aggression for a mutual and immediate truce.

The second point was exchanging prisoners between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides coincidently. The Palestinian militant groups hold an Israeli soldier who was captured last month in a cross-border raid at his base outside Gaza Strip.

Earlier, the political committee in the PLC has formed a subcommittee of seven legislators to prepare the initiative. The subcommittee includes Bardaweel, three Fatah lawmakers that including Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a Hamas lawmaker, an independent lawmaker and Mustafa al-Barghothi, the head of the Palestinian National Initiative party.

The subcommittee will begin talks next Saturday over the initiative with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ismail Haneya and the other Palestinian factions.

"The new political plan will take in consideration the initiative that was called by Haneya," Bardaweel told reporters.

On July 8, Israel rejected an initiative announced by the Hamas Prime Minister, where he called for immediate negotiations to solve the issue of the captive Israeli soldiers and to bring both sides back to the circle of calmness.

Later, the Palestinian factions rebuffed a plan declared by Abbas to stop Palestinian home-made rocket attacks against Israel.

Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip were conducted in an effort to rescue the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held hostage since three Palestinian militant groups carried out a cross-border raid on an Israeli army post on June 25.

Over 160 Palestinians have been killed and at least 500 wounded since the beginning of the Israeli operation "Summer Rains" on June 28.

The Palestinian militants holding the captive is demanding the release of prisoners from Israeli jails, something Israel has rejected outright.

Source: Xinhua