American Relief Worker Freed by Gaza Kidnapers

An American relief official, whose kidnaping set off a massive manhunt today in the rebellious Gaza Strip, walked calmly into a beachfront hostel late in the afternoon with a letter from his captors to President Bush urging understanding of the Palestinian cause.

The release of Chris George, co-director of the private Save the Children Federation of the West Bank and Gaza, ended a tense 24-hour episode that raised concern of an escalation in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the occupied territories.

The abduction of George, 35, was the first political kidnaping of a foreigner in the West Bank or Gaza since Israel occupied the Palestinian-populated territories in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Release of Activists Demanded

Initially, his kidnapers had demanded the release of Israeli-jailed Palestinian activists, including the leader of the fundamentalist Hamas organization, for his freedom. But Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared at midday that Washington had put no pressure on Israel to accede to the demands, and later in Washington a State Department spokesman said, “We don’t do business that way.”

State Department officials said the kidnapers identified themselves as members of the Palestinian Popular Army, an apparent cover name for an unknown group.

According to Palestinian reporters in Gaza City, George carried a six-page letter from his captors that he had been asked to deliver to President Bush. The letter asked that the American President meet with Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, according to reporters who saw it.

George told the Palestinian journalists that he was treated well by his kidnapers. “They were nice,” he said, but he did not identify them.

The relief administrator was seized outside the Gaza City office of his agency at midday Thursday. Announcing the kidnaping this morning, the Israeli Defense Forces blamed “terrorists associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization” for the abduction.

At PLO headquarters in Tunis, spokesman Ahmed Abdul Rahman promptly denied any complicity by the mainline Palestinian organization in the kidnaping.

“The PLO vigorously condemns this operation,” Rahman said. He called it “damaging to the Palestinian people and the uprising,” the 18-month-old Palestinian rebellion against Israeli rule in the occupied territories. He called on “all Palestinian organizations and individuals to work for (George’s) release so that he can resume his work for Palestinian children immediately.”

The PLO has publicly opposed any action against foreigners in the uprising, but the abduction of the American posed the possibility of a new strategy in the rebellion.

The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv issued a warning to the estimated 100 Americans living and working in Gaza to stay in their homes and to use extreme caution if they went out.