A NORTH-EAST journalist has been released unharmed after he was kidnapped by masked gunmen in Israel.

Freelance photographer Adam Pletts and US colleague Dion Nissenbaum were taken by Palestinian gunmen as they worked on a story in the Gaza Strip.

Last night, Mr Pletts' mother, Margaret, relived the moment she was told he had been kidnapped, and said she always believed her 27-year-old son would be freed.

Mrs Pletts, who lives near Barnard Castle, County Dur-ham, said her daughter, Mea, became emotional thinking about hostages being beheaded.

She said: "In my heart of hearts, I felt Adam and Dion would be released and they would not be harmed.

"I do not know what made me think that way, but I knew the aims of these hostage-takers and that they had no personal grudges against them."

Last Wednesday's incident was the latest in a series of abductions in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

It is thought the kidnappings - all of which have been resolved within hours - are aimed at winning modest concessions from the Palestinian authorities.

Mr Pletts, who lives in London, and Mr Nissenbaum, the Jerusalem bureau chief for a US newspaper group, were freed after they were held for about eight hours.

Mr Nissenbaum said the gunmen never told him why they were kidnapped, but that a Palestinian official later told him the kidnappers had demanded jobs with the Palestinian security forces.

As they drove along a coastal road last Wednesday, the pair were taken when a yellow taxi with five masked gunmen and a driver stopped their car.

The gunmen appeared uncertain what to do after they forced Mr Pletts and Mr Nissenbaum into the cab, leaving behind the journalists' driver, translator and a third man who was helping them on a story on land sales in Gaza.

The kidnappers eventually took the captives to a house in a rural area, apparently near the town of Khan Younis, where they were offered food and were told they would not be harmed.

Before the journalists' release, the gunmen took them from the house, drove them around and then returned to the house. Later, they walked them through nearby orchards and fields before they stopped behind a mosque.

After waiting behind the mosque, the militants took the pair to a nearby road - shook their hands - and released them to waiting Palestinian officials.

Mrs Pletts said: "Adam said the hairiest part was when they were initially taken and the kidnappers had sub-machine guns, with the safety catches off, pointing at their heads.

"The road was so bumpy, the driver had one arm, there were five or six gunmen and two hostages squashed into one car, and they were worried that if the car hit a pothole, one of the guns could go off."

Mr Pletts, who went to Teesdale School, in Barnard Castle, gave up his job as a management consultant this year to follow his dream of becoming a photojournalist