More Biting of Hand That Feeds Them

Palestinian gunmen on Monday abducted a Spanish aid worker in the central Gaza Strip, the latest in a wave of kidnappings of foreigners, Palestinian security officials and colleagues of the man said.

 

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media, said the man was forced into a yellow Skoda at the edge of the town of Khan Younis.

 

The hostage was identified by colleagues as Roberto Vila, a 34-year-old aid worker with the Cooperation Assembly for Peace, a Spanish charity group.

 

Celine Gagne, a fellow worker, said she and Vila were on their way out of Khan Younis after visiting a project for handicapped children when three or four men carrying Kalashnikov rifles stopped them.

 

“They asked me to stay behind,” she said. The gunmen then forced Vila into their car and sped away, she said.

The party got into the taxi and headed for the Rafah crossing ­ which reopened after the Israeli pullout from Gaza in a deal brokered by the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and is monitored by the European Union ­ to allow Palestinians from Gaza to travel in and out of Egypt. Mr Khulab said: “They wanted to see the suffering of the Palestinian people and the destruction of the border but also to see how the crossing was working.”

 

They got to see something else: the muzzle end of a “militant” gun.

 

Mr Mansour said: “It all happened so quickly no one had time to say much. I said, ‘What are you doing’ to one of the men but he pointed the gun in my face. Kate told her father to get in the [kidnappers’] car. She was calm. No one was screaming or anything. If there was anything I could have done to stop it I would have done, believe me.” Neither he nor Mr Khulab had a weapon. Mr Khulab tried to call for help on his mobile phone but the network was busy so they drove to the Rafah police station, five minutes away, and told officers what had happened. The two men stayed in Rafah until midnight desperately hoping for news. Two of Ms Burton’s friends, Celine Gagne, 25, and Roberto Vila, 33, have arrived in Gaza from Ramallah hoping for news. Like her, they work for an non-governmental organisation passionately devoted to helping Palestinians under occupation

According to other sources, Palestinian gunmen kidnapped two foreign journalists. Palestinian security officials said they were searching for a yellow Skoda.

Kate Burton told the BBC Arabic service she and her parents had been held in Rafah, southern Gaza, but that she could not say a bad word about her captors, who always asked whether they needed anything.