NABLUS: Israel on Sunday released a Hamas MP who had been held in prison for more than three years, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

MP Raed al-Amla returned to his home village of Qabalan south of the West Bank city of Nablus after ending a 41-month sentence in Israel prison, said Yaron Zamir, a prison service spokesman.

Amla was one of dozens of Hamas lawmakers arrested by Israel across the West Bank after Hamas and other Gaza militants seized Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid in June 2006. Shalit remains in captivity to this day.

According to Palestinian officials, 25 MPs are still held in Israeli prisons, including 22 from the Islamist Hamas movement, two from the secular Fatah movement as well as the leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.