Palestinian security forces arrested more than 13 members of Islamic Hamas movement over the past 24 hours in the West Bank, Hamas said on Wednesday.

In a statement sent to the media, the Islamic movement said most of detainees were former prisoners held in Israeli jails, students and academics.

The statement quoted a Hamas official as saying that the preventive security of Mahmoud Abbas authority stepped up its arrest campaign against Hamas supporters despite the ongoing inter-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo.

Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party have been exchanging arrests against their political dissidents: Hamas supporters in the West Bank and Fatah-aligned people in the Gaza Strip, after Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and took control of Gaza in June 2007.

On Tuesday, Hamas and Fatah agreed to hold a new round of unity and reconciliation talks in the middle of next month after finishing the fourth round of the dialogue.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2009)