GAZA/RAMALLAH - The deposed Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the West Bank released on Thursday hostages they held of their rivalries. Hamas Interior Ministry said that Osama Al-Farra, a leading member of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, has been freed in Gaza Thursday one day after Hamas forces arrested him. In the West Bank, the PNA's preventive security service released a senior Hamas member Mohamed Ghazal following hours of detention in Nablus city. The detention of Al-Farra in Gaza was apparently in response to what Hamas called "the kidnapping" of Ghazal in the West Bank. In 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah and seized control of Gaza after a week of fierce fighting against the PNA forces. The politically-motivated arrests Hamas and Fatah have done against each other for years are one of the hard issues that contributed to the failure of an Egyptian effort to reconcile the two movements and restore political unity in the region. Hamas still refused to sign on a reconciliation pact drafted by Egypt in October, saying it has reservations that need to be reconsidered. Hence, Egypt stopped hosting the inter-Palestinian dialogue. Meanwhile, Israel released on Thursday a Hamas lawmaker based in Jerusalem after he spent 43 months in detention, his lawyer said. Mohamed Abou Tair was arrested in 2006 in response to a Hamas- led raid in which an Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured and taken hostage in Gaza.
