{"id":2152,"date":"2007-07-03T21:24:36","date_gmt":"2007-07-04T02:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2152"},"modified":"2007-07-03T21:46:34","modified_gmt":"2007-07-04T02:46:34","slug":"bbc-gaza-reporter-alan-johnston-released-to-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2152","title":{"rendered":"BBC Gaza reporter Alan Johnston released to Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters<\/em>, 3 July 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

GAZA (Reuters) – Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, was handed over by his Islamist captors to ruling Hamas officials in the early hours of Wednesday, Reuters journalists who saw him said.<\/p>\n

They saw the 45-year-old Briton being embraced by BBC colleagues after he arrived by car at the home of Hamas’s local leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. He was smiling and looked well despite nearly four months in captivity.<\/p>\n

Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, said Johnston’s release showed his Islamist movement was bringing order to the coastal enclave since seizing control last month after fighting with the Western-backed Fatah faction.<\/p>\n

The BBC in London also confirmed Johnston was free.<\/p>\n

Hamas officials said Johnston may hold a news conference with Haniyeh before being taken to British diplomats for a journey home that would involve him leaving Gaza for Israel.<\/p>\n

[Read the report<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

BBC’s Johnston says “amazing to be free”<\/strong><\/p>\n

GAZA (Reuters) – The BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said on Wednesday it was “amazing to be free” and that he had often been frightened during four months in captivity.<\/p>\n

“It is just the most fantastic thing to be free,” Johnston told BBC television live from Gaza, adding it was “at times quite terrifying”.<\/p>\n

“I dreamt many times of being free and always woke up back in that room … It’s an amazing thing to be free,” he said, sounding composed though somewhat tired.<\/p>\n

Johnston said he had followed events on a radio during most of his time as a hostage and thanked people round the world, as well as his colleagues at the British public broadcaster, for their support and efforts to help secure his release.<\/p>\n

He said he had spoken briefly to his family in Scotland.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, 3 July 2007 GAZA (Reuters) – Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, was handed over by his Islamist captors to ruling Hamas officials in the early hours of Wednesday, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-yI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}