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Gunmen abduct 2 Italian aid workers in Gaza

21 Nov 2006 23:21:41 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks at the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) awarding ceremony for Jewish soldiers from outside Israel, in Jerusalem November 21, 2006.
REUTERS/YONATHAN WEITZMAN

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(Adds freed men at official's office, paragraphs 2-3)

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted two Italians working for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza on Tuesday and freed them eight hours later in the latest in a spate of kidnappings of foreigners in the Palestinian territory.

Palestinian security officials said the men identified by the ICRC as Claudio Moroni and Gianmarco Onorato had been freed unharmed after contact had been made with the kidnappers and both were brought to the home of a top Fatah official in Gaza.

"They look fine and unharmed, they are sitting and chatting," a witness at the official's home told Reuters.

Gunmen from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement had abducted the men, demanding an inquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death two years ago, but were persuaded their action was harming the Palestinian cause, a source involved in talks to free the hostages said.

In Israel, a rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli man in the town of Sderot, a hospital spokeswoman said. The 44-year-old factory welder was the second Israeli killed by a rocket from Gaza in less than a week, an unusually high toll.

Israeli media said Defence Minister Amir Peretz had convened military chiefs to discuss the possibility of mounting a wider incursion into Gaza amid growing public frustration with the army's failure to put a stop to the increased rocket strikes.

The abductions had underscored lawlessness in Gaza, where factional fighting and sanctions imposed on the Hamas government have worsened the poverty for 1.4 million people.

A police officer said the Italians had been taken from their vehicle near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and put into another car which then sped away.

An ICRC spokesman in Jerusalem, Simon Schorno, said both abducted men were representatives of the Italian Red Cross. Moroni was a dual national with a Canadian passport as well, an ICRC spokesman in Gaza, Iyad Nasir, said.

The Red Cross had "suspended its field operations" in Gaza after the kidnappings and its workers would remain in their offices and venture out only to provide aid in life-threatening situations, Nasir said.

In Gaza City, a gunman shot and wounded a former Palestinian cabinet minister from Fatah, who had served under Arafat, Fatah sources said.

HAMAS CONDEMNS SHOOTING

An outspoken critic of the Hamas government, Abdel Aziz Shahin was wounded in the thigh when the gunman fired at his car as he left the office of a pro-Fatah radio station in Gaza City, the sources said.

On Monday, Fatah said talks with Hamas on forming a unity government to overcome a Western aid boycott had been suspended because of disagreement over Hamas's demands to keep the coveted finance and interior ministry posts.

Ismail Rudwan, a Hamas spokesman, called the shooting "a cowardly incident rejected and condemned by Hamas."

A Fatah spokesman, Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, criticised Hamas and called the shooting "part of the state of anarchy for which the government bears full responsibility." He vowed Fatah would "take serious measures" in response.

The rocket that killed the Israeli struck a few hundred yards from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, who was visiting Sderot on a tour of the Palestinian territories and Israel.

The armed wing of Hamas said it launched the rockets at Sderot and had not known Arbour would be there.

Israeli troops killed a Hamas gunman in fighting in Gaza, hospital officials said. A Palestinian civilian died of his wounds after being hit by Israeli fire, other officials said.

Arbour arrived in Sderot from Gaza, where she toured the town of Beit Hanoun, scene of Israeli shelling that killed 19 civilians on Nov. 8. Israel said it had made a targeting error.

"It seems to me that we cannot tolerate much longer the level of exposure that civilians have to face every single day in Sderot and in Beit Hanoun as well, where I was the day before," Arbour said on Israel's Channel 2 television.

Israeli forces and settlers quit Gaza last year, but the military renewed ground operations in the strip after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a deadly border raid in June. (Additional reporting by Dean Yates and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem)

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Last updated:Tue Nov 21 23:23:47 2006