Gaza hunt for seized journalists
BBC

Palestinian security forces are searching the Gaza Strip for two kidnapped foreign journalists working for the US Fox News television channel. The two journalists are correspondent Steve Centanni and freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig.

The crew's Palestinian driver told security officials their car was stopped in Gaza City on Monday evening.

Meanwhile, Israel carried out two air strikes in Gaza overnight, injuring at least eight people.

The Israeli military said it was targeting a house in the Jabaliya refugee camp used by militants who had fired two rockets into Israel on Monday.

It said a second house, in Beit Hanoun, was being used as a weapons store.

Masked gunmen

The driver for the two journalists said masked gunmen ordered the men into another vehicle and they were driven away.

There is no indication yet as to who may be responsible but Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal told the Associated Press news agency that police across Gaza had set up roadblocks to find the missing men. Fox News said that negotiations were under way to secure the pair's release.

Over the past two years, a number of foreigners have been kidnapped in Gaza. All have been freed unharmed.

The kidnappings come one year after Israel abandoned its settlements on the Gaza Strip and withdrew the soldiers guarding them.

Some of the settlers had to be forced to leave their homes, which according to international law had been built illegally.

One year on, the bungalows and gardens of the former settlements are now heaps of ruins, says the BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza.

On agreement with Palestinian leaders, their homes were demolished after they left, but nothing has been built to replace them.

Land disputes and a lack of government control are partly to blame, says our correspondent, but Israeli artillery fire makes some former settlements too dangerous to go near.