Peace In Our Time Update from the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:
THREE Britons were kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen yesterday, the latest in a spate of seizures that has highlighted the growing lawlessness of the Gaza Strip.
A British aid worker, Kate Burton, 25, had been taking her visiting parents on a tour of the southern border town of Rafah when their car was stopped by masked gunmen. They were bundled into a white Mercedes and driven away at speed.
Last night police sources said that the kidnappers were negotiating with Palestinian officials for the release of the three Britons. It was not clear if any ransom demand had been made.
Numerous foreign citizens working in Gaza have been snatched by Palestinian groups over the past year, though invariably they have been freed unharmed within a few hours….
“Unlike in Iraq the kidnappings are not so much aimed at the foreigners themselves as at embarrassing the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and trying to show he has no control over the Gaza Strip,” John Strawson, a Middle East expert at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said.