Alan Johnston appears to be the latest western victim of conditions in a lawless Gaza, where kidnapping is a proven route to money and influence, writes Anita McNaught
‘This is the best Gaza has been for weeks,‘ Alan Johnston informed me as we drove together towards the Erez crossing. He was lighthearted: only three weeks to go before he finished his time as BBC correspondent in one of the more troubled spots in the Middle East.
An agreement laying the groundwork for a Palestinian unity government appeared to have largely stopped the factional fighting. It was more than two months since the last journalist was kidnapped. It was safe to be out in the streets of Gaza City again.
Gaza is not Baghdad. With one significant exception some six years ago, roadside bombs are not a hazard driving into the city. There are no dynamite-laden insurgents hurling themselves into street markets.
But kidnapping here has acquired a special flavour, and journalists now provide one of the few remaining western prizes in a sealed enclave abandoned by many western agencies and most western diplomatic staff. Israeli targets in the form of settlers and regular military patrols are also long gone.
Alan Johnston knows the risks very well. He was in Gaza when the most high-profile kidnapping - that of Fox News journalist Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig - took place. He stayed as long as he could to cover the story, before the BBC pulled him out.
During the two weeks that the Fox pair were held, the threats against journalists were savage and explicit. ‘The kidnappers‘ were looking for another western hostage, they wanted to ‘kill an American‘. Most media left, and came back in brief sorties. Alan fretted from Jerusalem, and returned to Gaza as soon as it was agreed safe enough.
Since then, as the situation in this pressure cooker of a region has steadily worsened, he‘s had to judge day by day whether the risks were too great, heading for the Israeli border when serious trouble threatened.
He‘s one of the few long stayers, tough but empathetic, committed both personally and with the backing of the BBC to document Gaza‘s deepening miseries. Despite pleas by Wiig and Centanni for journalists not to abandon Gaza because of what happened to them, most news organisations simply do not go into Gaza today unless they absolutely have to. Fox News, for example, has not allowed a reporter back in since.
Why are the kidnappings still going on? Because, every time, it pays. Gaza is politically complex, but, more importantly these days, it‘s utterly lawless. The kidnappings are a proven method of leveraging money and political influence. Each time, concessions are made and the kidnappers given immunity.
It has to be so, because there is no way of tracking them down, enforcing law or punishing the perpetrators. To do that would simply unleash another round of tribal retribution.
And the alternative - not giving in to at least some of the kidnapper‘s demands - is too awful to contemplate. So far, Gaza is not Baghdad. They don‘t behead hostages here. Palestinians, they will tell you themselves, are not that sort of people.
But Gaza is increasingly run by gangsters. Embryonic warlords who command fear, loyalty and respect. The family name behind the kidnapping of Wiig and Centanni is Dogmush, a tough clan from one of the poorest districts in Gaza City. The family used to deal in fruit and vegetables. Now it sells guns, and has grown rich and powerful off the trade.
The Dogmush clan in many ways tells the story of what is making Gaza so ungovernable. The head, a powerfully-built man called Mumtaz, graduated from work as a bodyguard, to belonging to Fatah‘s Preventative Security, to being a member of the radical Popular Resistance Committees, before a career as an arms dealer also made him valuable to everyone.
He went on to build the Islamic Army, one of the groups involved in the kidnapping last summer of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and somewhere along the way forged a discreet professional relationship with Hamas.
He was also the man behind the kidnapping of Peruvian photographer Jaime Razuri in January. No one knows for sure what the deal was that freed either Razuri or the two Fox journalists, but it‘s believed the payouts have been local, and involving favours or promises at the highest levels of Gaza politics - on both sides.
By the time he abducted Wiig and Centanni, his relationship with Hamas was already under strain - but in December Hamas fighters killed two of his family members who worked for the Fatah security forces, and a blood feud was unleashed.
Dogmush gunmen have launched many attacks on Hamas targets since, including repeatedly attacking the house of the former foreign minister Mahmood Zahar. The Dogmush ‘list‘ of Hamas revenge targets defies any attempts at uniting the two sides, and may yet derail the reconciliation process. Hamas, reportedly, wants Mumtaz dead. At least one assassination attempt has failed.
The Dogmush clan may not be behind the kidnapping of Alan Johnston. The comfort - scant but precious - is that this is how business is done in Gaza, and to date hostages have eventually been freed.
But it also illustrates uncomfortably that there is no such thing any longer as a ‘good time‘ to be in Gaza; foreign journalists have become too useful to resist.
Alan was looking forward to an immensely well-deserved period of leave after a very tough three years. The toll this will take on him personally will be huge, the consequences for the people of Gaza, once again, dire.
· Anita McNaught is a freelance journalist and is married to the Fox News cameraman Olaf Wiig