GAZA CITY, Nov 22, 2006 (AFP) - Two Italian Red Cross workers kidnapped in the southern Gaza Strip were freed late Tuesday after being taken hostage at gunpoint earlier in the day, the Red Cross and Palestinian security sources said.

Claudio Moroni, 36, and Gianmarco Onorato, 63, were free and on their way back to Gaza City from the south Gaza town of Khan Yunis where they were abducted by gunmen hours earlier, Eyad Nasser, a spokesman for the International Red Cross in Gaza told AFP.

Palestinian security forces had mobilized to search for the abducted aid workers and set up checkpoints on roads throughout southern Gaza following the kidnappings.

The two Italians had arrived in the Gaza Strip from Jerusalem only Tuesday morning to work on a joint mission between the Italian Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on a "psychological support project".

Masked gunmen forced the two foreigners out of their vehicle at a junction in Khan Yunis and into their own car, driving off to an unknown destination, a Palestinian security source said.

The International Red Cross suspended all of its field operations in the Gaza Strip after the kidnapping."We have decided to suspend our field operations," spokesman Eyad Nasser told AFP. "Our employees will stay in their homes and offices and only leave in emergencies."

The Red Cross' decision to suspend field work deals yet another blow to Palestinians already reeling from a social and financial meltdown brought on by a West-led aid boycott.

It was the latest in a string of kidnappings of foreigners to blight the impoverished coastal territory which is reeling from growing lawlessness and the aid boycott.

Around 20 foreigners, including many journalists, have been taken hostage in more than a year by gunmen generally looking to secure the release of Palestinians detained by the Palestinian Authority.

Most of the victims have been released unharmed in days.

An Italian journalist working for the Corriere Della Sera newspaper was abducted in the Gaza Strip on September 10 but freed safe and sound later the same day.

Last month, a Spanish aid worker and photographer were kidnapped by gunmen in two separate incidents in the Gaza Strip before also being released unhurt.

While most Gaza-based kidnappings end with the victims released unharmed within a few days, but in August two journalists for US television Fox News were held for 13 days by a previously unknown militant group, Holy Jihad Brigades.

Their abductors demanded the release of all Muslim prisoners held in US jails, the first time that Gaza kidnappers made demands of a foreign government rather than the Palestinian Authority.

©2006 AFP All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed. All reproduction or redistribution is expressly forbidden without the prior written agreement of AFP.

top