Israel released the Palestinian deputy prime minister, the highest-ranking of more than 30 officials from the Hamas-led government it holds in hopes of trading them for a captured Israeli soldier.
Nasser Shaer was freed on Wednesday by an Israeli court after more than a month in prison without being charged.
Shaer said he was not mistreated by his Israeli jailers, but he objected to his detention.
PHOTO: AFP
"There is nothing dearer than being free," he said. "They came and took me from my house in front of my children, wife and family. They had no reason to do it."
The arrest of top Palestinian officials has been a sore point in relations between Israel and the Palestinians, which have rapidly deteriorated since Hamas took power in March.
Israel and the West, labeling the violent Islamic movement a terror group, have cut off funding to the Palestinian government, plunging the Palestinian areas into a deep financial crisis.
Violence flared on June 25 when Hamas-linked militants attacked an Israeli army base near Gaza, killing two soldiers, capturing a third and triggering a large-scale Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Israel also rounded up dozens of West Bank officials from the Hamas-led government. Though Israel said they were suspected of involvement in terrorism, it was widely assumed they were meant to be traded for the soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit. But no progress has been reported in mediation efforts.
Shaer managed to evade arrest for more than a month, but was caught Aug. 19.
Ordering his release, the Israeli court banned him from going to Ramallah, the Palestinians' West Bank administrative capital, for two weeks.
Instead, after Israeli soldiers dropped him off at a checkpoint, he hitched a ride home to Nablus, where he was greeted by dozens of supporters who chanted, "God is great," and then took him to a party in his honor at a local restaurant.
Shaer, who did not run for parliament on the Hamas ticket, but joined the government after the Islamic group's election victory, said he refused to talk politics in prison and denied he is a Hamas member.
Breaking with Hamas ideology that refuses to recognize a Jewish state in the Middle East, Shaer told reporters that if Israel renewed its 2000 offer of 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for a Palestinian state, leaving Israel intact, "I would ask the Palestinian people."
The late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat rejected the offer, and Israel took it off the table after violence erupted later in 2000.
Thirty lawmakers and four Cabinet ministers remain in Israeli custody, charged with belonging to an illegal group. On Monday, a military court in the West Bank declined to release 21 of those detained officials on bail. A hearing for the 13 others is scheduled for next week.
Palestinian government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Shaer's detention was "political and illegal," and the charges against the other officials were "fabricated."
In related news yesterday, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at the house of a Palestinian weapons dealer on the Gaza-Egypt border, destroying it completely, Palestinian security officials said.
The owner received a warning by telephone before the air strike, and residents left the building, the officials said. Two people were lightly hurt.
Israeli has carried out a series of strikes against homes of suspected weapons dealers in recent weeks. The destroyed house was located in the border town of Rafah.
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