A Spanish photographer for the Associated Press news agency was kidnapped Tuesday by gunmen off a street in Gaza City, the latest abduction of a Westerner in the increasingly lawless Palestinian territory.
Emilio Morenatti, 37, was seized early morning by four masked gunmen as he left an apartment of the US news agency and bundled into a waiting white Volskswagen, while his driver was restrained.
No group immediately claimed responsibility and there was no immediate comment from the AP bureau in Jerusalem, where Morenatti has been based for a year and a half.
In Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos pledged to use all his contacts and influence to free the photographer "as soon as possible."
"I have had several conversations, with among others (President) Mahmud Abbas, and with top Palestinian political and security officials," Moratinos told Spanish reporters.
A Spanish diplomatic source said that the country's consulate in Jerusalem was sending two officials to Gaza. The Palestinian leadership condemned the abduction. "We demand the kidnappers release him immediately," a spokesman for the Islamist Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, told AFP.
"We strongly condemn this kidnapping and we are doing all we can to free him. This kidnapping is in contradiction to our national interests and blackens the image of Palestinians." Hamas did not know who carried out the kidnapping nor their motivations, Hamad said. In Ramallah, Abbas's office also blasted the abduction.
"We condemn this kidnapping and we call for the kidnappers to release him immediately," said a statement. "The Palestinian security services have begun searching to find him."
Morenatti, from Jerez, Spain, has often worked in Gaza and the West Bank during his Jerusalem posting, and had spent more than a year prior to that covering the war in Afghanistan for AP.
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