Last update - 00:00 19/12/2006
Fatah official takes to Israeli airwaves to describe Hamas kidnap
By The Associated Press
A day after being kidnapped at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip, Sufyan Abu Zaida hurriedly headed to the Israeli airwaves Tuesday morning to calm the fears of a few old friends.
"How are you? I was worried about you," Army Radio host Rafi Reshef said.
Shortly after, Israel Radio's Amnon Nadav cut off another interview to go live to Gaza to hear from Abu Zaida.
"Thank God, I'm OK," he assured both, in impeccable Hebrew, before detailing his brazen late-night abduction by masked militants from Hamas.
Abu Zaida, 48, a former Cabinet minister and top Fatah official in Gaza, was seized late Monday night as he was driving home. He was released unharmed a few hours later.
The kidnapping was just a part of a weeklong outbreak of fighting between Fatah and Hamas that has been marked by street battles, kidnappings and assassination attempts.
Abu Zaida, the former Palestinian Authority minister of prisoners' affairs, speaks fluent Hebrew, learned during his 12 years in Israeli prisons, and is a frequent guest on Israeli radio and television shows. On Tuesday, he recalled at length his harrowing experience in interviews with Israeli journalists.
"It was a dangerous situation, a split second between life and death," he told Army Radio. "Suddenly you find yourself facing 30 loaded weapons. I told my bodyguards 'No one move, do not make a move.' If they would have shot, within one second we all would have been dead."
Abu Zaida said he was taken to a home in the Jabalya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, where he was offered coffee and tea. He said he knew his captors and did not fear for his life during his few hours in captivity, only the consequences of the act.
"I know our people and I am concerned about the reaction," he said. "There is a lot of hate, and there is a result to this hate."
In a separate interview with Israel Radio, he said his fate could have been much worse.
"If the story would have lasted a few minutes longer it wouldn't have ended this way. It would have ended in catastrophe," he said.
He said he was pessimistic the internal Palestinian bloodshed would not end soon.
"My heart says I hope, but my head says it is impossible," he said. "I never imaged that I would be a target for anyone, especially not Hamas. And in my own home court, [where] everyone knows me, everyone respects me, everyone appreciates me. There was no sign that anyone would want to hurt me."
Abu Zaida also encouraged Israel to remain on the sidelines.
"Israel cannot play a positive role in this matter, not now," he said. "Maybe when there is a peace agreement, God willing. Then, as neighbors, the more experienced and smarter neighbor can come and say 'Guys, why are you fighting?"'