NABLUS, West Bank ? Palestinian militants beat and held the governor of a West Bank town for five hours on Saturday, raising tensions with Palestinian authorities under heavy Israeli pressure to crack down on armed groups.

The attack on Haider Irsheid by the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in Jenin came ahead of an expected meeting today between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Premier Mahmoud Abbas to work on a U.S.-backed peace plan, which is stalled despite a 3-week-old truce declared by militant groups.

Al Aqsa’s leader in Jenin, Zakariye Zubeydi, accused Irsheid of collaborating with Israel and demanded the Palestinian Authority send a mediator to question Irsheid and take him to be put on trial. Irsheid is the governor of Jenin.

But the militants freed Irsheid about five hours later after a call from an unidentified official at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office. Al Aqsa is loosely affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah movement.

“For me, Arafat’s order is not up for negotiation, so I released him immediately,” Zubeydi told The Associated Press, adding that he would leave the responsibility for judging Irsheid to Arafat.

Zubeydi also accused Irsheid of involvement in a failed attempt to kill an Al Aqsa member Friday.

Shortly after the governor’s release, the office of Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan issued a statement saying the government had started “a large-scale campaign” to bring law and order to the Gaza Strip.

The statement gave no specifics on what had been done or what was planned, but the militant Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Palestinian police arrested two of its members in Gaza on Saturday.

Al Aqsa has been blamed for several small-scale attacks on Israelis since the main Palestinian militant groups declared the temporary cease-fire June 29. Although Fatah joined the truce, leaders of some Al Aqsa branches refused to honor it.