Hamas issued an ultimatum on Monday to the Palestinian militants holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in the Gaza Strip, threatening to free him by force if they do not release him by the end of the day.

"If he is not released, we would use all means to secure his life and to free him," a senior Hamas official told Reuters of Johnston, a Briton who was abducted in Gaza on March 12.

"Today [Monday] is the last day for the captors to release Alan Johnston," the official said.

	Advertisement

Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip last week, routing security forces dominated by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction.

The Army of Islam, which is holding Johnston, has demanded that Britain free Muslim prisoners, particularly Islamist cleric Omar Abu Qatada, who was once known as al-Qaida's spiritual ambassador.

Johnston, who turned 45 in captivity last month, is the only Western correspondent based full-time in the Gaza Strip, where a year-old economic embargo and fighting among militants have worsened living conditions.

None of several foreigners seized in Gaza in recent years has been harmed. None has been held as long as Johnston, with most freed within days.

On Sunday, a spokesman for Army of Islam, the militant group believed to be holding Johnston, denied and earlier report that a deal had been reached to free the abducted Gaza correspondent.

"Freeing this detainee has not been part of any deal with any faction or organization. What appears on television screens and through the media here and there are untrue," a man identified as a spokesman for the Army of Islam in Gaza told Al-Jazeera television.

"If they do not meet our demands there will be no release for that detainee and if things become more difficult ... then we would seek God's satisfaction by slaughtering this journalist," said the spokesman, identified as Abu Khatab.

The British Foreign Office said such statements only caused distress to Johnston's family and friends. The BBC said it was aware of the statement and other reports from Gaza on Sunday.

A Hamas official had said earlier Sunday that "the BBC journalist will be released within the next hours, today," Abu Osameh al-Mo'ti, a representative of Hamas in Iran, told reporters in Tehran. He was speaking through an interpreter.