 A Palestinian family released two United Nations Development Program employees yesterday afternoon, hours after kidnapping them in an attempt to secure the release of a clan member seized the day before by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the mainstream Fatah movement, to which Al-Aqsa is linked, began negotiating with the Abed clan for the release of the abductees, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem and an Australian woman, shortly after they were dragged at gunpoint from a United Nations vehicle outside Gaza City’s Adam Hotel. The Abed clan threatened to kill the two if Jihad Abed, a senior Palestinian security official kidnapped Thursday by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, was not freed. |