President Mahmud Abbas has ordered the release of Islamist
Hamas militants arrested by his forces in the West Bank over the past week, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday, but arrests of Fatah officials by Hamas were reported in the Gaza Strip.

'President Abbas has ordered his security officials to free all the Hamas militants arrested in recent days in the West Bank,' the authority said in a statement.

But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zohri, speaking to AFP in Gaza City, said: 'Despite this statement,no Hamas prisoner has been released until this evening by the Fatah in the West Bank.'

A Fatah official who asked not to be identified said early Friday that Hamas had arrested major Fatah leaders in Gaza, identifying them as Zaccaria el Agha and Ibrahim Abul Naja, both members of the executive committee for political operations, and Mohammed el Kutra, governor of Gaza City.

Later, he said, others had been arrested including Hossam el Fara, governor of the southern town ofKhan Yunes, the governor of the Gaza Strip's central bank Abdullah el Fara, and eight local Fatah officials.

Five members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, and a little girl were killed last Friday by a bomb in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas blamed Abbas's supporters and began a massive crackdown across Gaza, arresting more than 300 people, mostly members of the president's Fatah party.

Fatah denied involvement in the blast and blamed it on internal differences in Hamas.

Abbas's forces in the occupied West Bank responded with an arrest campaign of their own in which dozens of Hamas members were rounded up, though both sides adamantly deny arresting anyone for political reasons.

The two main Palestinian factions have been deeply divided since Hamas expelled Abbas's security forces from Gaza in a week of bloody street battles in June 2007, cleaving the territories into rival entities.