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GAZA - A BBC correspondent was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip today by unknown assailants, Palestinian officials said.
Police officials identified the journalist as the BBC's Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, who also reports for Radio New Zealand.
They said his rental car was found abandoned in Gaza City and that a search was underway for the British national.
The BBC had no immediate comment on Johnston, who is believed to be the only Western journalist still based full time in the Gaza Strip.
Most other journalists moved out of the impoverished territory last year as fighting between rival Hamas and Fatah factions intensified.
"We are aware of (the) reports and are urgently looking into it," a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
Palestinian Interior Minister Saeed Seyam of Hamas described the kidnapping as a "criminal act".
"The security services will ... pursue the criminals and bring them to justice," he told reporters.
Security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah declared a state of emergency and set up checkpoints in the streets to search for Johnston.
There have been a series of abductions of foreign journalists and aid workers in Gaza in the past year.
All have been released unharmed.
The last foreign journalist to be kidnapped was a Peruvian photographer working for the French news agency Agence France-Presse in early January.
The AFP photographer was released unharmed after nearly one week in captivity.
Last month three American woman were abducted in the occupied West Bank and freed about an hour later.
Militants have abducted foreigners usually to try to put pressure on the Palestinian government to give them jobs or to press for the release of detained colleagues, including those inside prisons in Israel.
- REUTERS
