A leader of a terrorist group with al-Qaida ties has been released from a Gaza jail by Hamas.

Hisham Al-Saedni leads the Salafi terrorist group "Tawhid and Jihad" and joined al-Qaida in Iraq in 2003. Hamas officials arrested Al-Saedni in March 2011 for allegedly disrupting public order. Tawhid and Jihad made his release a priority, kidnapping and killing pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni last year in response to Al-Saedni's imprisonment.

On Wednesday, a Hamas official blasted an adviser from the rival Palestinian Authority for daring to visit the Auschwitz death camp. Ziad Bandak became the first PA official to visit the infamous Holocaust camp, the Jerusalem Post reports. But Fawzi Barhoum of Hamas called the Holocaust "a big lie" and said Zindak's trip expressing the Islamic militant group's position, claimed Wednesday that the Holocaust "is a big lie" and said the visit served the "Zionist occupation."

The terrorist group's refusal to acknowledge the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews is long standing. In 2009, the group demanded that the United Nations withdraw a new history book that would be used by middle school students in Gaza because it contained a chapter on the Holocaust.

Last year, Hamas co-founder Mahmud al-Zahar also called the Holocaust a lie, saying it "crumbles with countless holocausts committed by the Zionists in Beit Hanoun, al-Fakhoura school and other places in Palestine."