Israel has released ahead of schedule one of the 20 female prisoners due to be freed in return for a video of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, officials said on Thursday.

Bara Malki, 15, was released late on Wednesday after a judge ordered her freed, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prison Authority told AFP.

"A regular parole board hearing shortened her sentence ... and the judge ordered her released," the spokeswoman said.

Speaking from her home in the Jalazun refugee camp outside the West Bank town of Ramallah, Malki told AFP: "My name was on the list (to be freed) ... I'm happy that I've been released but the court released me because of my age."

Malki was serving 11 months for attempted murder and an attack on a police officer, prison officials said.

Breakthrough
On Friday, Israel is due to free 19 other women prisoners in return for a videotape of Gilad Shalit, a soldier seized by Gaza militants in June 2006.

The exchange, announced on Wednesday, marked a major breakthrough in nearly three years of on-again, off-again Egyptian-brokered negotiations between Israel and Hamas for an exchange. German mediators joined the talks in July.
 

Valuable Prize
For Hamas, Shalit is a valuable prize: Israel over the years has released thousands of prisoners in exchange for the return of just a few soldiers, dead or alive.

Since his capture, Hamas has allowed Shalit to send a few letters and an audiotape to his family, but has not allowed visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which the recent Goldstone report, among others, presses for.

Previous attempts
In March 17, 11th-hour talks on an Israel-Hamas prisoner swap collapsed as both sides accused each other of about-turns and bad faith.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak later accused Israel of scuttling a deal that was on the verge of ending Shalit's captivity.
 

Mubarak told Israel's mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper in July that Shalit had been about to be transferred to Egyptian safekeeping when Israel altered its terms for a prisoner swap.

Source: AFA/AFP