Gaza - Extending an olive branch to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of unity talks in Cairo next month, the Islamic Hamas movement released 17 members of the president's Fatah movement it had detained in the Gaza Strip in July.

The 17 were among dozens of Fatah activists arrested by Hamas police after a car bomb killed five Hamas members in Western Gaza City in late July.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said the decision to free the 17 was taken in order to help efforts by Egypt to reconcile the Islamist organization with Abbas' secular Fatah movement.

Hamas and Fatah have been locked in a bitter, and sometimes violent, feud since the former defeated the latter in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.

The tensions between the two movements came to a head in June 2007, when Hamas activists routed forces loyal to Abbas in the Gaza Strip, and seized control of security installations there.

Abbas responded by dismantling a short-lived unity government and sacking Haniya from his post as prime minister. Haniya refused to acknowledge his dismissal and Hamas continues to administer the Gaza Strip, leaving the Palestinian Authority in control of the West Bank. (dpa)