GAZA CITY: Hamas briefly detained the Palestinian attorney-general in Gaza on Thursday, the highest-ranking Palestinian Authority official the Islamists have seized since taking control of the territory. Members of Hamas’s Executive Force detained Ahmed al-Mughani after he came to his office in Gaza City for the first time since the Islamists overran the territory in mid-June.

Mughani is close to Hamas’s secular rival, the Fatah party headed by President Mahmud Abbas, and he had come back to Gaza from the president’s base of Ramallah during the past several days. He was released shortly after his arrest, after being ordered not to leave the coastal strip.

“They released me after setting several conditions – not to leave the Gaza Strip, not to make provocations and not to return to my position,” Mughani said after being freed from Hamas security headquarters. “I refused to sign these conditions because I take my orders from president Mahmud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. What happened is a violation of the law,” he said.—AFP