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Spanish Aid Worker Kidnapped, Released in Gaza Strip

A Spanish aid worker was kidnapped at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon and released a few hours later. Roberto Vila, 34, has worked for two years in Gaza for the Spanish charity Cooperative Assembly for Peace. He was forced into a car outside the city of Khan Younis by several gunmen carrying Kalashnikov rifles. A female co-worker, who was with him, was not abducted. Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government condemned the kidnapping and said it was a criminal rather than a nationalistic act. Hamad called Vila’s abductors "thieves, looking for personal profits." A photographer for the Associated Press was abducted in Gaza last week and released unharmed after being held for 16 hours.