RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) -- Arsonists torched the car of a Hamas cabinet minister early Sunday, police said.

Prisoner affairs minister Wasfi Kabha's vehicle was completely gutted in the attack outside his home in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, local police chief Mohammed al-Hawari said.

Kabha was in Ramallah at the time but said he had been told about the attack in the early hours by his wife who was in their house.

"This is the work of collaborators with the Israeli occupation," Kabha told AFP.

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, it comes at a time of acute tension between the governing Islamist movement and the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas.

Jenin is a stronghold of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of the Fatah movement. Kabha said that all factions must "stop actions against each other as this will only increase tension in the Palestinian street."