CNN itself reports:
A group of armed men abducted a CNN producer in Gaza City on Monday.
The men kidnapped producer Riad Ali after stopping a taxi he was riding in with CNN Correspondent Ben Wedeman and a CNN camerawoman.
A white Peugeot pulled in front of the taxi, blocking its way, Wedeman said.
“A young man got out of the car, pulled a gun out of his trousers, came up and said to me — actually in Arabic — ‘Which one of you is Riad?'”
Ali answered, “I am Riad,” Wedeman said.
The kidnapper ordered Ali to get out of the taxi, Wedeman said. As he did so, several other men, some with AK-47s, exited the Peugeot.
Wedeman said the kidnappers made no attempt to cover their faces.
“They took him out of the car and drove him away,” said Wedeman. No one was injured in the incident.
Ali, who is an Arab, has worked for CNN for about two years. He has worked in Gaza and the West Bank.
So they were looking for Ali — who’s a Druze Arab and Israeli citizen — specifically. Perhaps his reporting had become too ‘independent’ for their taste.
YNet (Hebrew) adds that Ali recently worked with Israel’s Channel 1 and is a father of three. They quote an Arab Knesset member indicating that ‘The Rais Arafat himself is addressing the matter.’ That must comfort Ali’s family considerably.
Ali’s longtime editor at Channel 1 said:
Riad is a fantastic guy. In my opinion, he’s the finest Arab journalist working in Israel. A very opinionated guy – doesn’t attempt to follow anyone’s particular line…I have no idea why they abducted him — there’s no way anyone could think he was a ‘collaborator’ with the Israeli government.
Perhaps he was abducted precisely because he ‘doesn’t follow anyone’s particular line’ — that has been shown to be unacceptable and downright dangerous in Palestinian areas. Especially for an Arab journalist.
UPDATE: AFP is already suggesting (through selective quotation) that this was a response to Israel’s probable hit on a Hamas leader in Damascus yesterday:
tension had risen in the territory following the assassination in the Syrian capital by suspected Israeli agents of Hamas founding member Ezzeddin Sheikh Khalil.
That is, it was Israel’s fault. As if the tension level was low in that neighborhood two days ago…
