British reporter freed after 4 months in captivity

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – British reporter Alan Johnston, looking pale and tired, was released today after nearly four months in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent described his time in captivity as “occasionally quite terrifying” in a telephone interview with the BBC. “It was an appalling experience,” he said, speaking from the home of deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza.

“It is indescribably good to be out,” he said in a steady and composed voice. “It is just the most fantastic thing to be free,” he added, saying he felt as well as could be expected.

“I didn’t know where it was going to end,” he said, adding that he had endured “an extraordinary level of stress” and psychological pressure. “I probably got out if it as well as I could have.”

Johnston was kidnapped by a shadowy, little-known group from a Gaza City street on March 12 and held far longer than any other foreign reporter in Gaza.

After his release, he was taken to the home of Haniyeh in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp. Before entering, Johnston told an Associated Press reporter, “I’m OK, really, I’m OK.”

Television footage showed Johnston emerging from a building in Gaza surrounded by a throng of armed Palestinian men and escorted into a waiting car while cameras flashed around him.

There was no comment from Johnston’s captors, the Army of Islam.

Hamas had demanded Johnston’s freedom since it violently seized control of Gaza last month, in an apparent bid to curry favor with the West.

On Tuesday, Hamas gunmen took positions around the Army of Islam’s stronghold, stepping up the pressure to secure his release.

Members of Hamas’ 6,000-person militia moved onto rooftops of high-rise buildings and deployed gunmen in streets of the Gaza City neighborhood inhabited by the Doghmush clan, the large, heavily armed family that leads the Army of Islam.

In an afternoon exchange of fire, a Palestinian civilian was killed, Hamas said, blaming the Doghmush forces.

On Monday, Hamas arrested the spokesman of the Army of Islam, giving it a potentially valuable bargaining chip in its efforts to release Johnston.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Johnston’s captors of smearing the Palestinian people’s reputation and of seeking “to prove to the world that we are a group of militias that fight each other to gain personal ends.”