Two kidnapped UN employees released in Gaza
Palestine-UN, Local, 7/30/2005

Two UN employees, one Australian and one Palestinian, were released in Gaza, hours after their kidnapping in Gaza, where they were welcomed by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his house in the city.

One of the kidnappers said that the decision to release Steve Dabilla, a Palestinian photographer from Jerusalem working with the UN, and the Australian woman Zawai Sabella, a UN development program officer, were taken on Friday evening following a meeting between the kidnapers and the chairman of the Palestinian preventive security department Rasheed Abu Shbak.

Witnesses and one official at the UN said that the two UN employees were kidnapped at the hands of veiled men in front of a hotel in Gaza and were taken to al-Breij camp for refugees.

News reports in Gaza said that the armed group is from the family of Jihad Abed, the Palestinian officer who was kidnapped last Thursday by an armed group called Jenin martyrs.

In a statement, the group called on the Palestinian authority to quickly work for the release of Lt. Gen. Jihad Abed who works in the military intelligence, and gave a grace period of several hours to meet its demands, threatening to kill the kidnapped if Abed is not be released.

The Palestinian minister of the interior Nasser Yousef threatened in a statement to take oppressive measures against each and every one that takes part in kidnapping foreigners because such acts, as he stated, harms the image of the Palestinian issue.

Previous Stories:
  UK, France call on Israel to stop wall of separation construction   (7/23/2005)
  Palestinian refugees' conference calls to halt separation wall   (7/22/2005)
  al-Rai al-A'm: EU hasn't taken procedures to stop Israeli racial wall: parliamentarian   (6/9/2005)

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