Top Hamas official Adnan Asfour was on Sunday released from Israeli prison only to be briefly detained by rival Palestinian police forces cracking down on the Islamists in the West Bank.

Asfur was released from Shata prison in northern Israel after sitting 30 months behind bars over suspicions of involvement in fundraising in the occupied West Bank for the movement which Israel considers a terror outfit.

An official with the Palestinian security services, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Asfour was `not arrested, he was simply invited for a talk on the political situation and then allowed to go home.`

Yamane Asfour, a daughter of the Hamas official, said earlier that he had been arrested.

`We went to meet my father at the Jalameh crossing (in northern West Bank). Half an hour after we got back home, where he was greeted by relatives and friends, armed men of the Palestinian Authority came to arrest him,` she said.

Hamas has accused Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas of ordering his forces in the West Bank to arrest hundreds of Hamas members since the Islamists violently seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, routing Abbas`s Fatah movement.

In Gaza, Hamas slammed Asfur`s detention.

`We consider this a big provocation. We will not ignore the arrest without a harsh response to Abu Mazen and his security services,` Hamas MP Salah al-Bardawil told AFP, referring to Abbas`s patronym.