BBC Journalist "Alan Johnston" Freed
BBC journalist freed in Gaza after 16 weeks
Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza correspondent who was kidnapped March 12, was freed early on Wednesday morning and is now in the hands of Hamas officials.
Johnston, looking wan and thin and dressed in a pair of blue jeans, his hair grown out over his ears, was released without violence after negotiations between Hamas, which now runs Gaza, and his kidnappers.
Escorted by gunmen from Hamas, he was seen entering the home of the Hamas leader in Gaza, the former prime minister, Ismail Haniya. He was embraced there by his colleagues from the BBC Gaza office, and he was seen to be smiling.
Hamas routed the Fatah faction in a kind of civil war in Gaza last month and since then has been trying to deliver on promises of security and stability. The release of Johnston was an important goal for Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, in its efforts to secure international credibility.
In a brief telephone interview with the BBC from Haniya's house, Johnson said: "It is just the most fantastic thing to be free." It is "indescribably good to be out," he said, describing 114 days of captivity.
It was an appalling experience, as you can imagine," he said in a measured, hesitant but fluent way. "Sixteen weeks kidnapped." It was "sometimes terrifying," he said, describing how "countless times I dreamed of being free and then woke up in the same place."
Johnston said he was allowed a radio, however, and was able to track the efforts to secure his release and listen to the comments and messages broadcast by the BBC from his colleagues and friends. In particular, he said, he was sorry for the trouble he had caused his parents, who live in Scotland. "All through they were my major concern," he said. "I was so upset that my activities had brought all these difficulties" to their peaceful lives.
Asked about his own state of mind, Johnston paused and said: "I feel, I think I'm O.K. It was an extraordinary level of stress and psychological pressure for a long time." He said he won't know for sure how he is "for a long time, but I feel as well as I could, I think."
Haniya is expected to turn Johnson over to British diplomats.
Johnston, 45, was held for nearly four months, longer than any other foreigner kidnapped in Gaza. He was taken from his car in Gaza at gunpoint and was held by a shadowy group calling itself the Army of Islam, which is a radical part of the powerful Dagmoush clan in Gaza.
Since the Hamas movement conquered Gaza last month, Hamas officials have been cracking down on the power of the clans and have been pressing for Johnston's release. His continuing detention was considered an embarrassment by many ordinary Palestinians, who considered him a fair and sympathetic voice, and made it more difficult for other journalists to cover the territory.
Johnston's plight has been the center of a worldwide campaign for his freedom by colleagues — Palestinian, Israeli, foreign and BBC. But his kidnappers, who threatened to kill him and released a video of him wearing an explosive belt on June 24, ignored those pleas, demanding the release of prisoners held abroad, including Abu Qutada, a radical cleric held on terrorism charges by Britain, and up to $5 million, Palestinian Authority officials said.
Hamas has been negotiating with the Dagmoush clan and the Army of Islam, surrounding the Gaza neighborhood, al-Sabra, where the clan lives, and attacking or kidnapping a number of key clan figures in an effort to press for Johnston's release.
Another armed group, the Popular Resistance Committees, which also have Dagmoush clan members, was serving as an intermediary. The armed pressure on the clan was increased along with the mediation efforts, which involved the initial release of 10 Hamas supporters, kidnapped by the family a day earlier, in exchange for the release of four people from Dagmoush who were seized by Hamas.
Hamas and the clan agreed that kidnappings would stop and that the clan's extensive weaponry will be considered part of "the resistance" against Israel and not confiscated, according to a member of the Army of Islam interviewed this morning. But his version of the deal could not be immediately confirmed. One member of the Hamas military wing said that the Army of Islam had "played an important role in the resistance," including in the capture a year ago of an Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, still being held.
The clan has been threatened by Hamas, which is trying to stem the power of armed gangs, and feared being attacked once Johnston was released.
Last summer, the same group from the Dagmoush clan kidnapped two journalists for Fox News. They were held for two weeks and mistreated, finally forced to say they accepted Islam before they were released. There have been persistent reports that a ransom was paid, although Fox News denies having paid one.
The political director of Hamas, the exiled Khaled Meshal, spoke of the release as a sign that Hamas will bring order to the chaos of Gaza. "We have been able to close this chapter which has harmed the image of our people greatly," he told the Reuters news agency from Syria. "The efforts by Hamas have produced the freedom of Alan Johnston."
Johnston, a Scot, was kidnapped only a few weeks before his three-year tour in Gaza was supposed to end.
The BBC tried to handle the kidnapping quietly at first, but persisted in trying to bring public pressure to bear for Johnston's release, including pleas from senior politicians and diplomats, the United Nations Secretary General, from Palestinian and other Arab journalists and an online petition, which as many as 200,000 people endorsed, the BBC said.
On Tuesday, Palestinian officials said that more than 150,000 Palestinian Authority civil servants and security force members loyal to the new emergency government appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah would receive a full monthly salary on Wednesday from Palestinian money for the first time in 17 months.
But about 20,000 public sector employees allied with the Hamas-led government of Haniya will not be paid from authority coffers, expanding the rift among Palestinians since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June.
Public sector workers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have received only partial salary payments from the Palestinian Authority since Hamas came to power in early 2006, though they have also received European aid.
Because the United States, Israel and the European Union classify Hamas as a terrorist organization, its victory led to an international economic embargo against the Palestinian Authority, meaning that European and other aid had to formally bypass the Palestinian government. It did not stop, however, and even increased in 2006 from 2005.
Israel and some Western countries have resumed the cash flow to the Palestinian Authority now that Abbas has formed a non-Hamas government based in Ramallah.
Abbas fired the previous Hamas-led government after Hamas took over Gaza, routing the Fatah and Palestinian Authority forces.
Only those Palestinian Authority employees listed in the budget of 2005 will be paid Wednesday, said an aide to Salam Fayyad, an economist whom Abbas appointed prime minister, finance minister and foreign minister in the new government.
Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian youth in Hebron on Tuesday evening after they mistook a toy rifle he was carrying for an M-16, an Israeli Army spokeswoman said. Maan, the Palestinian news agency, identified him as Ahmed Skafi, 15.
