GAZA: Israeli forces detained two Palestinians, who the army said were Hamas militants, in the Gaza Strip yesterday in what marked the first such arrest raid in the territory since Israel pulled out of Gaza a year ago.

Ali Muamar, a Palestinian known to local residents as a Hamas loyalist, said he was asleep on a bed outside his home near Rafah refugee camp in south Gaza when he woke up and saw uniformed Israeli soldiers scaling down the walls of his courtyard with ladders.

"They attacked me all of a sudden," he said. "They blindfolded and handcuffed me and started beating me up with the butts of their rifles and kicking me with their boots."

Muamar said the soldiers raided his home, took his computer and left after less than an hour with his sons - Osama, a doctor who had arrived in Gaza last month from Sudan, and Mustafa, a student of Islamic law.

A spokesman for Hamas, which won control of the Palestinian government in a Palestinian parliamentary election in January, denied the men detained were connected to the group.

l Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh last night said a meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas was back on track, denying earlier reports that the session had been cancelled.

Officials in Abbas' office had said earlier that an expected meeting with the prime minister would not take place, signalling a new snag in power-sharing talks between the rivals.

Haniyeh said the meeting would take place late last night in Gaza City. Abbas aides would not confirm the meeting, but ordered journalists to leave the president's office.

Earlier in the day, officials from both sides had expressed optimism that a deal would be reached.

But officials from Abbas' Fatah party said the president was uncomfortable with Hamas' positions on certain key issues.