Kidnapped BBC correspondent longest held in Gaza

Kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has become the longest-held reporter ever abducted in the Gaza Strip.

Seventeen days after he was kidnapped by masked Palestinian gunmen, there has been little outward progress in efforts to free him.

Many suspect members of a powerful Gaza clan took Johnston but security officials – both those loyal to the Islamist group Hamas and its rival Fatah - are reluctant to pursue it, hoping not to antagonise a heavily-armed family that could shift its loyalty to either side if infighting between the two groups begins again.

It is an unsettling sign for foreign journalists already reluctant to cover events in troubled Gaza. Two Fox News employees were kidnapped and held for two weeks last summer, and several more have been snatched since then.

All the captives were released unharmed. The kidnappers typically demand money or jobs and go unpunished, which appears to encourage them to see kidnapping foreigners as a lucrative enterprise.

Johnston, 44, was the only Western reporter permanently based in Gaza. He was preparing to leave at the beginning of April when gunmen kidnapped him from his car March 12.