HEBRON, West Bank, June 19 (Reuters) - An Israeli military court ordered the release on Thursday of a Hamas lawmaker detained two years ago as part of a crackdown on the Islamist Palestinian faction in the occupied West Bank. Plans to prosecute Bassam al-Zahari were dropped due to "reasonable doubt," a military spokeswoman said. Zahari told Reuters by telephone that he had left Israel's Ofer prison and was returning to his hometown, Hebron. Israeli forces seized Zahari and other Hamas politicians in the West Bank after a soldier, Gilad Shalit, was abducted to the Gaza Strip by the Islamist faction's gunmen on June 25, 2006. Hamas accused Israel of gathering "bargaining chips" for Shalit's release. Israeli officials said the lawmakers, who took office when Hamas crushed the secular Palestinian faction Fatah in elections that year, were suspected of security offenses. Talks on Shalit's return are part of an Egyptian-brokered Gaza truce between Israel and Hamas that began on Thursday. Hamas wants Israel to free hundreds of jailed Palestinians for the soldier. Israel has balked at some of the names on the roster but signalled it could relax its criteria for clemency. Israel's anti-Hamas dragnet paralysed the Palestinian parliament, undermining an already uneasy alliance between the Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah. A year later, Hamas routed Fatah forces to take over Gaza, prompting Abbas to dissolve a unity government and revive peacemaking with Israel. (Reporting by Haitham Tamimi, Writing by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Dominic Evans)
An Israeli soldier fires tear gas at protesters during a demonstration against the construction of Israel's disputed barrier in the West Bank village of Nilleen near Ramallah June 19, 2008. REUTERS/Fadi ...
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