Johnston's father appeals for his release

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Monday said that it had received assurance that its correspondent, Alan Johnston, kidnapped one week ago in the Gaza Strip was “Ok''.

"We are receiving assurances that people believe he is OK," Middle East Bureau Editor Simon Wilson said in the company's first news conference since the abduction. "We are grateful for those assurances, but we are disappointed that we still don't have any firm knowledge of his whereabouts seven days after he was kidnapped."

Johnston's father, appealed on Monday for his son's immediate release. "Holding Alan is not doing the Palestinian people any favours, quite the opposite," said his father Graham Johnston, in a video released by the BBC. "It's no way to treat a friend of the Palestinian people.

"All I can say to the men who are holding Alan (is) please let my son go, now, today."

Johnston, the BBC's main correspondent in Gaza, was forced from his car by gunmen while driving home from work on March 12. There has been no information on his whereabouts since.