GAZA CITY (AFP) - Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya said on Tuesday that the ball was in Israel's court over a prisoner exchange deal for a soldier held by Gaza militants.

Haniya's comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reviewed a list of prisoners that Palestinians want freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit, a serviceman captured on June 25 by Haniya's Hamas movement and other Gaza-based militants.

"We are serious in our will to proceed with an exchange and we hope that negotiations will lead to the freeing of our detainees from the prisons of the Israeli occupier," Haniya told reporters in Gaza City.

"The ball is in Israel's camp and everything now depends on the answer that Israel will give to the just Palestinian demand to free our prisoners," Haniya said.

Israel confirmed on Sunday it had received the list of prisoners Palestinians wanted freed through Egyptian mediators, the first sign of progress after months of deadlock.

Army radio reported that Olmert went through the Palestinians' list Tuesday with Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Beth domestic security service.

A source close to the Palestinian government told AFP the list contained the names of 450 prisoners, including such leading jailed activists as Marwan Barghuti and Ahmed Saadat, both members of the Palestinian parliament.

Barghuti, the West Bank leader of President Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah movement who is widely revered by Palestinians as the mastermind of their second uprising or intifada, is serving five life sentences for planning attacks against Israelis.

Saadat, leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is accused by Israel of masterminding the 2001 assassination in occupied east Jerusalem of far-right tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.

As long ago as last September, Abbas made clear that he would insist on both men's release as part of any exchange.

Olmert is expected to convene his security cabinet later this week to set Israel's criteria for clearing prisoners for release.

Shalit was captured when militants tunnelled out of Gaza and attacked an army border post. The raid sparked a deadly Israeli air and ground offensive against the Gaza Strip that killed several hundred Palestinians before a November ceasefire came into force.