As the hunt for Madeleine McCann dominates the news, another abducted Briton spent his 66th day in captivity yesterday somewhere deep inside the increasingly violent and lawless Gaza Strip.

The plight of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston has been largely eclipsed in the past fortnight but his family, friends and colleagues marked his 45th birthday with emotional messages of support and with vigils in cities as far apart as Moscow, Hong Kong and Tehran.

Separately, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that it was talking to the lawyer of Abu Qatada, the radical Islamic cleric, about him issuing an appeal for Mr Johnston’s release. Mr Qatada has been in custody in Britain since 2005 for alleged links to al-Qaeda.

Johnston has been held longer than any other Westerner in Gaza, but the chances of him being freed soon look remote. His captors are thought to be the most feared and powerful clan in Gaza – the Dagmoush. Hamas and Fatah, the two groups that make up the Palestinian coalition government, have a good idea where he is being held, but appear powerless to rescue him. Gaza is meanwhile descending into civil war rapidly as violent clashes between rival Hamas and Fatah factions increase.

Blockade drains life from Gaza

The movement of goods into Gaza had been intermittent at best since Hamas won Palestinian elections early last year

Multimedia

• Pictures: Johnston is released

• Video: unarmed protester confronts gunman in Gaza

• Pictures: life in Gaza

BACKGROUND

• Israel continues Gaza blitz as 310 dead

• Q&A: Hamas and Gaza

• 97 days and counting for BBC's man in Gaza

• Now war is with the enemy within

• The little girl trapped by a quirk of war

Related Links

• Briefing: Johnston video and the rise of Islamists

“Johnston’s fate is more uncertain than ever as Gaza City sinks deeper into the chaos and bloody clashes that began several months ago,” Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that lobbies for press freedom, said in a statement.

Johnston, a self-effacing Scot, was snatched at gunpoint from his rented car as he returned to his beachfront flat from his office in central Gaza city shortly after 5pm on March 12. He was the only Western journalist based full-time in Gaza, one of the world’s most dangerous postings, and was just three weeks from finishing his three-year stint.

More than 93,000 people have signed a BBC petition demanding his freedom. Leaders of the United Nations, the European Union, Hamas, Fatah, the Arab League, the Iranian regime and numerous international media associations, including Israeli and Palestinian journalists, have condemned his kidnapping.

Rallies have been held around the world. Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone, the Archbishop of York and many other luminaries have appealed for his release. The BBC has organised days of action and weekly vigils. The London Press Club named him Broadcast Journalist of the Year.

It has all been deeply traumatic for Johnston’s elderly parents, Graham and Margaret, and sister, Katriona. In April an unknown group called the Tawhid and Jihad Brigades claimed to have killed him – an apparent hoax. A group calling itself Jaish al-Islam – Army of Islam – subsequently published a picture of his BBC identity card with a demand that Britain release Abu Qatada and other Muslim prisoners.

Johnston’s parents sent birthday wishes to their son yesterday through a BBC video. “We’re all thinking of you all the time, constantly. It would be a much happier birthday if you were here with us today. All our fondest love, my son. Keep your chin up,” Graham Johnston, 74, said as he stood in his garden in Lochgoilhead, Argyll, framed by distant hills. “Your dad, your sister and I are all all right, honestly,” Mrs Johnston assured her son.

The campaign to secure Johnston’s release is very different from that to find Madeleine McCann, whose family and friends are remarkably open and court publicity in the hope that someone will come forward with a vital piece of information.

Neither the BBC nor the Foreign Office will discuss their efforts to free Johnston, arguing that they did not want to say anything that might put him in deeper danger. A request by The Times to talk, or even email questions, to the journalist’s family was likewise refused.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office would say only that the Government was working on the assumption that Johnston was alive and still in Gaza. She confirmed that Richard Makepeace, the British consul-general in Jerusalem, had twice met Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian Prime Minister, despite the Government’s ban on contacts with Hamas.

“It was done on humanitarian grounds only, and the only issue they discussed would have been Alan Johnston,” she said.

She said that the Army of Islam’s demands were “not the sort of demands the British Government would ever countenance . . . The bottom line is that the British Government never makes substantive concessions to hostage-takers.”

Asked whether the Government believed that the Dagmoush clan was holding Mr Johnston, she replied: “We have to explore all these different theories – some have more credibility than others.”

Suspicion has fallen on the Dagmoush because the clan leader, Mumtaz Dagmoush, is also believed to head the Army of Islam.

It is likely that Johnston is being held in the Sabra district of Gaza City, which is a Dagmoush stronghold and a no-go area for the Palestinian security forces. It is patrolled by heavily armed clan members and protected by barricades of rubble, burnt-out cars and concrete blocks.

The Dagmoush are Gaza’s largest clan, with several thousand members, and have been called “the Sopranos of Gaza City”. They have grown powerful through extortion, smuggling, arms dealing and the ruthless dispatch of rivals.

The Dagmoush used to support Yassir Arafat’s Fatah movement but switched their allegiance to Hamas, with whom they claimed responsibility jointly for last summer’s kidnapping of the Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit.

In December Hamas militiamen shot dead two members of the clan, Mahmoud and Ashraf Dagmoush, and in Gaza, as one seasoned observer remarked, “when a clan loses a member someone else has to die”.

The Dagmoush clan demanded that Hamas hand over the gunmen. When Hamas refused the Dagmoush responded with a wave of violence. It is thought that the Dagmoush may have kidnapped Johnston for use as a bargaining chip. It has kidnapped journalists and Western aid workers before for that purpose, but has never held them long.

The Israeli Government also believes that the Dagmoush clan has embraced a more radical al-Qaeda style ideology. If that is true, the outlook for Johnston is bleak. The British Government could pull various political levers if the kidnappers belonged to either Fatah or Hamas, but with the Dagmoush clan, “I’m not sure we’ve got any,” said a former government official involved in previous kidnap sagas. “This is a group beyond our reach.”

Nor, it seems, has the Palestinian Authority, which has condemned repeatedly Johnston’s kidnapping. “The fact is the PA is totally powerless,” an observer said. “Gaza is not a big place. They know who they’re dealing with and where he is. The fact they can’t release him shows they have no authority and no ability to enforce law and order.”

Johnston courageously chronicled the suffering and misery of the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in the narrow, fenced-in slither of land that is the Gaza Strip. He is now a prisoner within that prison, and a lonely one. Since his kidnapping, and with Gaza’s descent into anarchy, he is practically the only foreigner left there.

Captured

March 12 Alan Johnston seized from his car at gunpoint in Gaza City

March 19 Mr Johnston’s father appeals for his the release of his son, calling him “a friend of the Palestinian people”

April 12 International Day of Action. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, joins appeals for Mr Johnston. His father releases letter urging kidnappers to “please let my son go now, today”

April 15 Unknown Palestinian group claims to have killed Mr Johnston

May 4 Solidarity rallies held around the world

May 8 The British Consul-General in Jerusalem meets the Palestinian Prime Minister despite a ban on contacts with Hamas

May 9 Army of Islam sends al-Jazeera a tape showing Mr Johnston’s BBC identity card and demanding the release of Abu Qatada and other Muslim prisoners in Britain

May 10 London Press Club names Mr Johnston broadcast journalist

May 13 The Iranian Government joins international condemnation of kidnapping

May 17 Mr Johnston’s 45th birthday and his 66th day in captivity

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