Israel frees Palestinian minister after months of jailing

Israel has released a former Palestinian minister after eleven months of detention, a Palestinian NGO said Thursday.

"Wasfi Kabha, the former Palestinian minister for prisoners' affairs, has already arrived home after having been released earlier in the day," Ahrar Center for Human Rights Studies said in a statement.

It said Kabha was detained on June 15 of 2014 soon after three Israeli settlers went missing in Al-Khalil.

It added that the former Palestinian minister was then put in administrative detention at a northern Israel jail.

"He was then sentenced to ten months in prison," the center said of Kabha.

Kabha, a leading Hamas member who hails from the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin, was appointed as minister of prisoners' affairs after his group won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006.

Israeli forces had detained hundreds of West Bank Palestinians-including several Hamas lawmakers and former cabinet ministers-against the backdrop of the three settlers' disappearance and murder.

Over 6,500 Palestinians are currently languishing in prisons throughout Israel, according to official Palestinian figures.