A British woman and her parents were kidnapped by a group of unidentified gunmen today in the southern Gaza Strip.
Kate Burton, 25, who worked for Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City, was bundled into a white Mercedes car with her mother and father this afternoon only a few hundred yards from the Rafah border with Egypt.
So far no demands, and murky details on who the kidnappers might be. Debka has it differently, calling the abductees, "a woman, man and child" which doesn't seem supported by the facts as we know them. But they also hve this:
Armed men snatch three Britons – a woman, man and child – in Egyptian Sinai and carry them by force through the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip
According to one report, the abductors are members of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees who recently threatened to "cleanse" the crossing terminal. Last week, the British Foreign Office warned citizens not to enter the Gaza Strip for any reason for fear of kidnapping or other forms of terror.
Local reports indicated that the hostages were a 25-year-old human rights worker and her visiting parents, and said they had been snatched in the town of Rafah.
"We are in a position to confirm reports of three Britons missing in the occupied territories ... at this stage, we have no further details," a Foreign Office spokesman said.
It was reported that the woman worked at the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights.
It was said the three Britons had been travelling in a car 200 yards away from the border crossing when they were approached by gunmen in a white Mercedes.
They were bundled into the attackers' car and driven off at high speed. The Mercedes was pursued by a security vehicle, but got away.
In not quite related terrorism news, insurgents are back in business in Iraq... And members of a German family may have been kidnapped in Yemen... (Gaza, Iraq and Yemen... not exactly places with strong civil liberties, and gee, look what-a-gwan...)
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
