Israeli soldiers shot dead a senior Hamas militant north of the West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday, an Israeli military source said.
The killing came as Palestinians said Israel had freed another top Hamas figure, Mohammed Taha, in the Gaza Strip after he spent 14 months in prison.
An Israeli unit "on operational duty north of Nablus saw an armed terrorist and opened fire and killed him," and then safely detonated a bomb that had been planted nearby, near the village of Talousa, the Israeli source said.
The militant was identified as a senior Hamas figure in the area, though his name was not immediately divulged.
Palestinian officials had no immediate comment on the shooting which was reported shortly after Taha, 68, a founder of the same militant group behind suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis, was released to his home in central Gaza.