Shalit & Johnston boobytrapped in Gaza

Today marks one year since the young IDF corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas gunmen in a cross-border raid. Israeli television reports quoted Hamas sources assurances that their captive is alive and healthy, held incommunicado in an underground chamber in Shaboura, a refugee camp near Gaza's southern border. Hamas sources said Shalit's two-room cell is dug into the bottom of a 15 meter shaft lined with explosives. His jailers access Shalit's hidey-hole by ladder and keep enough provisions there so that they can withstand a two week siege.

Meanwhile, a disturbing video of the BBC's Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, trussed up in a suicide belt, was released online by his kidnappers today, as the latest deadline for the journalist's release expired. A little-known faction, called Jaish al-Islam [or Army of Islam], defied the Hamas ultimatum by showing this tape, in which Johnston understandably appears anxious.
"The situation now is very serious. As you can see I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there was any attempt to storm this area," he said.

Johnston is held hostage at a seaside tower block in Gaza City. Clerics said that his kidnappers must be scared of retribution by other factions if they release the BBC reporter. “We condemn the continued release of videos like this which can only add to the distress of Alan Johnston’s family and friends,” said a British Foreign Office spokeswoman. The BBC appealed again for Johnston's immediate release and posted this second video on its website. His abductors insist on swapping the Scotsman Johnston for Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-born Islamic cleric who is accused of links with al-Qaeda and currently is detained by Britain as a national security threat. Abu Qatada is expected to be deported soon.

This just in: Hamas has released an audio tape purported to be Shalit, and his father confirmed that the voice sounded like his son's. On the recording, the captive soldier says his health is deteriorating and berates the Israeli government for ignoring his plight and for not meeting the demands of Izz el-Din al-Qassam, the armed wing of Hamas. B'Tselem, an Israeli NGO, has demanded that Hamas allow the International Red Cross to visit the hostage, Shalit, and pointed out that his captivity flouts the Geneva conventions. Last year, when Shalit's parents attempted to send their son some new eyeglasses, Hamas balked, fearing an attempt to smuggle in spy specs replete with miniature gadgetry.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a surprise announcement at the Middle East summit, announced the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners, as per demands of Shalit's kidnappers. Just to spite Hamas, all of them are Fatah loyalists.

Flicker of hope for BBC's Johnston?

This morning, a videotape of Alan Johnston, the BBC's missing-in-action Gaza correspondent, was posted on an Arab website, al-Ekhlaas. Click here to view it. He said he'd been well fed, treated without violence and then called for the lifting of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority. This tape is the first proof of life, post-kidnap, but there's no indication when it was recorded or whether Johnston, who has been held hostage since March 12th, still is ok. The BBC is cautiously optimistic and continues to work towards his freedom. The Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam) posted the footage on the internet, according to wire services. They were the same group that released images of Johnston's identity card earlier this month, shortly after a renegade group claimed the captive was dead.

Earlier, heated words on the risks of reporting in the Middle East and pandering to terrorists were exchanged between Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal commentator and former editor of the Jerusalem Post, and Fran Unsworth of the BBC. Hat tip to Tom Gross, media analyst, for highlighting this rift. Stephens' column, which suggested that Johnston tilts toward the pro-Fatah camp and that his employers placed him in jeopardy because they felt the BBC had "political impunity" and special access inside the Gaza strip, raised hackles. It was branded as "scurrilous" and "snide". When Unsworth criticised a lack of sympathy and drew a comparison with the plight of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded in Karachi by Al Qaeda sword-bearers, this was interpreted as a "cheap shot". On all sides, players are getting testy as the days of captivity drag by and the internecine conflict festers (inside Palestine as well as amongst the hacks.) There sure is a lot of BBC-bashing going on by Israelis, particularly after the British Union of Colleges and Universities mooted a boycott of Israel.

Complaints that the kidnapped IDF corporal, Gilad Shalit, whose capture ignited the Second Lebanon War last summer, gets less publicity than Johnston seem beside the point. An armed soldier is trained for the risks of combat and is more prepared for the possibility of becoming a prisoner of war. Reporters increasingly face such violence as lawlessness takes hold. In fact, the same Gaza splinter group, Jaish al-Islam, is believed to be holding both of these men.

Makepeace --if only!--seeks to free hostage

A British Envoy in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, is one of those rare people whose surname suits his job perfectly. (It reminds me that there was an actual Doctor Bonebreak in my childhood neighbourhood, but this particular moniker, with its diplomatic impertive, is wonderfully upbeat.)
After Makepeace's recent attempts to find out from the Palestinian leaders the whereabouts of the BBC's missing correspondent, Alan Johnston, who was grabbed at gunpoint from the streets of Gaza on March 12th this year, there has been a minor breakthrough. Al Jazeera network has just received a tape from an obscure guerrilla group which calls itself Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam.) They were involved in the capture of an IDF soldier, Guy Shalit, last June, in cahoots with Hamas but are not normally counted among the street factions of Gaza's mean streets. Their tape, under scrutiny by authorities, is said to contain some new evidence, such as a snapshot of Johnston's ID badge. News reports are cautious, and do not point to an irrefutable proof of life. The abductors have demanded $5m ransom, prisoner exchange, and even a plot of land. (Another group even claimed that the 44 year old newscaster was already executed) The tape contained no new information on Johnston's whereabouts, his health or the group's intentions, but Al Jazeera noted that the absence of any threat could be a good sign. A second audio tape sent to al-Jazeera on Wednesday morning,cautioned against attempts to use force in order to free the British reporter.