Armed men kidnapped a BBC correspondent after forcing him from his car in the volatile Gaza Strip today, Palestinian security sources said.

Alan Johnston, a Briton and the BBC’s primary journalist in Gaza, is one of the few Western reporters to be permanently based in the increasingly lawless territory. He was snatched from his car in Gaza City.

Johnston had just arrived in Gaza after crossing Erez, the main border post between the territory and Israel, and went to his office in Gaza City where he picked up a car to drive to his house nearby, they said.

Gunmen stopped his car as he headed home, forcing him out and driving off with him, they said. One report from Gaza said that the journalist threw a business card from the window of the car as he was driven away.

The BBC could not confirm the details of the reports, but said that it had lost touch with Johnston and was concerned for his safety.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said that “consular staff in Gaza are checking with the local authorities, but we are unable to confirm anything more at the moment".

The Palestinian interior ministry and the presidency ordered all security services and police to search for the missing journalist, while officials slammed the abduction.

The head of the main Palestinian security service, General Jamal Kayed, said he had put his forces“on maximum alert” and ordered roadblocks to be set up in the coastal strip to try to catch the kidnappers.

Hamas condemned the abduction and demanded that the reporter be released“immediately and without conditions."

“This criminal act aims to sow panic among foreigners living in Gaza and prevent them from reporting the suffering endured by our people under the fire of the occupation,” the movement said in a statement.

Abductions of foreigners have been fairly common in the impoverished Gaza Strip, with some 20 such cases over the past year. In most cases, the kidnappers used the hostages as bargaining chips to gain concessions from the Palestinian Authority, and the detainees were released unharmed.

The most recent kidnapping of a foreign journalist was that of Jaime Razuri, an AFP photographer, who was snatched by armed men in Gaza City on January 1 and released unharmed seven days later.

Last August, two journalists from the US-based Fox News television network spent two weeks in captivity before being released.

On November 21, two Italian aid workers were detained briefly after being abducted at gunpoint. A Spanish aid worker was also kidnapped and held for several hours last October 30.

On October 24, Spanish photographer Emilio Morenatti, from the Associated Press news agency, was briefly detained before being released the same day.

Home to 1.4 million people, the Gaza Strip has been wracked by Palestinian infighting, an international aid boycott and Israeli military operations during the past year.

The West suspended direct aid to the Palestinian government after the radical Islamist Hamas movement came to power a year ago, and Israel has withheld customs duties collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel and the West consider Hamas to be a terror group and demand that it renounce violence, recognise Israel and agree to abide by past peace deals if aid is to resume.

The boycott has wreaked havoc on the Palestinian economy, especially in the Gaza Strip where unemployment is rampant and 1.1 million people receive food aid from the United Nations.

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