NZ diplomats join efforts to free abducted Kiwi journalist

New Zealand diplomats have gone to Israel to help secure the release of abducted television cameraman Olaf Wiig.

Mr Wiig, 36, was taken hostage at gunpoint on Monday in Gaza City. He was due to return to his home in England within a week.

Mr Wiig, who was born on the Kapiti Coast, and US journalist Steve Centanni, 60, were in a news truck working for Fox News when they were kidnapped.

Witnesses reported that two vehicles approached the truck and boxed it in.

A masked man put a gun to a bodyguard's head, forcing him to the ground.

The gunmen then sped away with the two journalists.

The New Zealand diplomats were bound for Jerusalem overnight to add their diplomatic weight to calls for Mr Wiig's immediate and safe release.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said she was very concerned for Mr Wiig's safety and gave assurances that New Zealand officials were doing all they could.

New Zealand's Ambassador to Turkey, Jan Henderson, and the consul in Cairo, Brian Chambers, are expected to arrive in the Israeli capital today.

Though no one has claimed responsibility for the abduction, suspicion has centred on the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of the mainstream Fatah movement.

Mr Wiig is married to the former New Zealand television journalist Anita McNaught.

She had been in Syria working for BBC World and was last night speeding to Israel to be closer to her husband.

Fox News has provided Ms McNaught with a car and a driver.

Once there, "I will bring my own contacts to bear to help them in their negotiations", she told National Radio.

"If I have to storm into Gaza in an unusually high dudgeon and tell some people off, I will."

Ms McNaught said she was worried for her husband of eight years, but optimistic.

"There has never been a situation where a foreign hostage has been hurt in Gaza when abducted."