JERUSALEM, May 29: Israeli police briefly detained and later released a daughter of the Palestinian prime minister on Monday after she tried to visit an inmate at an Israeli prison using a fake identity, a police spokesman said. Kawla Haniyeh, in her late teens, had entered Israel from the Gaza Strip as part of regular visits Israel allows for family members of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.

Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said Kawla Haniyeh was questioned briefly and then released without charge. She was allowed to rejoin a party of Palestinians returning home to the Gaza Strip after visiting family members imprisoned in Israel.

Earlier, a Prisons Service spokeswoman said only next of kin were allowed to visit prisoners and that Kawla Haniyeh had presented a birth certificate which apparently belonged to the sister of the prisoner she had hoped to see.—Reuters