Israel releases Palestinian PM's daughter

JERUSALEM - Israeli police briefly detained and later released a daughter of the Palestinian prime minister today 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.

Her father Ismail Haniyeh, a father of 13, heads the Hamas-led government. He has not commented on the detention. Hamas, an Islamic militant group, is sworn to destroy 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.

"She is not his sister, wife, daughter or mother, and as such had no right to visit this prisoner," Orit Steltzer said.

Officials declined to name the prisoner, although they said he was serving a 15-year sentence for attempted murder in a jail in southern Israel.

Kawla Haniyeh was taken for further questioning to a police station in the nearby city of Beersheba.

"The prison guards said Kawla had admitted using a similar tactic to enter the jail on a number of previous occasions," police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

He said the prisoner whom Kawla Haniyeh was trying to visit later said she was his sister.

- REUTERS