Gaza seizure remains murky

It has been a month since Alan Johnston, a BBC journalist accustomed to working in dangerous places, was forced from his car in the Gaza Strip by four masked gunmen. He was traveling alone, but it didn’t take his colleagues long to figure out that something was wrong: Johnston coolly dropped a business card in the street before he was driven away.

That was the last public clue in a case that has become unusual for its longevity and its obscurity.

Johnston is believed to be the longest-held foreign captive during Palestinian rule in the coastal territory, often the scene of factional fighting, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops and brazen acts of organized crime.

Yet there has been no claim of responsibility, no video of the victim, no public demands by his captors and no comment by the British Broadcasting Corp. or Palestinian officials on their apparent indirect contacts with the people holding him.

The BBC’s director-general, Mark Thompson, observed the one-month milestone Thursday by announcing what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had told him here the day before: There is “credible evidence” that Johnston is “safe and well.” A confidant of Abbas, Saeb Erekat, said that assurance had come from “many sources.”

It was the first official indication that the kidnappers had revealed any information about the journalist.

Abbas “could not shed any light” on why Johnston is being held, Thompson said at a news conference here, but “he assured me that Palestinian authorities are fully engaged with Alan’s case and are working to resolve it as soon as possible.”

Fellow journalists say the efforts are insufficient, and the BBC organized a “day of action” Thursday to press for a resolution of the case. In an unusual joint effort, BBC, CNN, Sky News and the English-language service of the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera aired a special 30-minute telecast, anchored in the relative safety of this West Bank city, about Johnston, the dangers facing journalists covering Gaza and efforts to secure his release.

“You have families,” Graham Johnston said in a message to his son’s abductors, speaking at a London news conference. “Please think about what this is doing to my family.”

In Gaza City, about 200 Palestinian journalists, some carrying signs that said “Free Alan,” held a rally in a public square. Then they drove through the streets in cars plastered with posters of the 44-year-old journalist, stopping outside various police compounds to denounce what they called silence and inaction.

The Israel-based Foreign Press Assn., whose members cover the Palestinian territories as well as Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, issued a statement voicing “dismay, frustration and anger” over Johnston’s prolonged captivity.

“It is a situation that discourages necessary coverage of Gaza, and its people,” the statement said. “It is a direct assault on the freedom of the press. It is the inexcusable abuse of an individual’s freedom, and it is the betrayal of traditional customs of hospitality and humanity, for which the people of Gaza are rightly famous.”

More than a dozen foreign journalists and aid workers have been abducted by Gaza gunmen in the last 18 months, often in a bid to secure money or jobs. Most have been freed unharmed within hours or days. One exception was the abduction of two Fox News employees in August. They were freed unharmed after nearly two weeks.

Johnston, an energetic reporter with a friendly manner, learned Arabic after moving to Gaza and made a wide range of contacts as one of the few Western journalists based in the territory. He joined the BBC in 1991 and worked in two other hotspots, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, before his posting to Gaza in 2004, an assignment that was to end late this month with a transfer to London.

On March 12, Johnston returned to Gaza from a dental appointment in Israel and stopped at the BBC office to pick up his car. He was on his way home, and had driven a few blocks when he was abducted.

Britain’s Jerusalem-based consul general met last week with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas to discuss efforts to free the journalist.

Neither government has described those efforts in public, but Britain reportedly has cautioned the Palestinians against using force to free the journalist if his location is discovered.

Unofficial reports attributed to Palestinian security officials in Gaza have suggested that Mumtaz Dagmoush, a militant leader of a large clan in northern Gaza who is feuding with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government, organized the kidnapping. Some reports have said that the kidnappers, through indirect channels, are demanding several million dollars in ransom and the release of at least three Islamist prisoners held abroad.

Asked about those reports at his news conference, Thompson, the BBC executive, said he was not aware of any ransom demand.

“We have no direct contact whatsoever with the people holding Alan,” he said.

Meanwhile, Thompson said, the BBC is “increasingly concerned about the physical and mental toll his incarceration must be taking on him.

“There is no possible justification for abducting a journalist in this way,” Thompson said.

boudreaux@latimes.com

Special correspondent Abukhater reported from Ramallah and Times staff writer Boudreaux from Jerusalem. Special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.