The father of a British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent abducted in Gaza a week ago appealed to his captors on Monday to free his son immediately.

Graham Johnston said in a television appeal that his son,
Alan Johnston, who has not been seen since March 12 when he left the BBC's office to drive to his Gaza City home, was a "friend of the Palestinian people".

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"Holding Alan is not doing the Palestinian people any favors," he said. "Quite the opposite.

"This is no way to treat a friend of the Palestinian people, and all I can say to the men that are holding Alan is: please let my son go, now, today."

The BBC said Monday it has received assurances that correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in the Gaza Strip a week ago, was 'okay,' but didn't know where he was being held.

Middle East Bureaux Editor Simon Wilson, in the company's first news conference since the abduction, said the BBC had no direct contact with the kidnappers, and didn't know what the abductors' motives were.

"We are receiving assurances that people believe he is okay," Wilson said. "We are grateful for those assurances, but we are disappointed that we still don't have any firm knowledge of his whereabouts seven days after he was kidnapped.

Johnston was headed for his apartment in Gaza City when four masked gunmen snatched him from his car in Gaza City. Wilson said the BBC thought Johnston was being held in Gaza.

Johnston, of Scotland, had been reporting from Gaza for the past three years.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas has condemned the abduction and said he has ordered security forces to search for the kidnappers.

Johnston was the latest in a string of foreign journalists to be abducted in Gaza.

Wilson said the BBC didn't have any information regarding a motive for the kidnapping. But people involved in the search have said the abductors have demanded money, jobs and weapons from the Palestinian government.

Wilson said the BBC would continue to cover events in Gaza, using local staff and foreigners coming into the strip. But it hasn't decided whether to have a foreign correspondent based in Gaza full-time, he said.

"I think it would be an enormous shame if international agencies were put off from basing foreign correspondents here," he said.

Most of the dozens of foreigners who have been kidnapped in Gaza over the years have been released unharmed in a matter of hours or days. Two Fox News employees, however, were held last year for two weeks.

"As time passes, we are growing increasingly concerned about Alan's safety," the BBC said in a statement from Britain.

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