GAZA CITY, Jan 8: Two Spanish journalists were briefly held by gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, security and diplomatic sources said, stressing that the pair had not been kidnapped as feared initially.

Palestinian security sources reported that a man and a woman working as a photographer and journalist for Spain's El Pais daily were snatched near an Israeli checkpoint and driven off by Palestinian gunmen, security sources said.

"Armed Palestinians seized two journalists near an Israeli checkpoint west of Khan Yunis camp and took them off in a car in the direction of the camp," one witness said.

Palestinian security sources said the couple were released an hour and 15 minutes later.

"The two journalists have been released. They were working for El Pais newspaper," one source said.

A European diplomatic source in Gaza downplayed the incident.

"A problem arose when a group of residents took offence that the reporters were taking pictures without any authorisation," the source said on condition of anonymity.

The journalists were ushered into a house and questioned until their identity and the purpose of their presence in Gaza was established. "This was an insignificant incident that lasted a few minutes," the source insisted.

On Sept 28, an Arab-Israeli producer for CNN was abducted for about a day in Gaza City.

The US network said at the time it had received a video tape in which the abduction appeared to have been carried out by members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of the mainstream Fatah party.

In July, a Palestinian group seized four French nationals - two men and two women - who were in the Gaza Strip to help rebuild the battered electricity network.

The kidnappers were former members of the security services expressing grievances after being fired.

The four aid workers were released after a few hours but the brief abduction, which coincided with a wave of grisly kidnappings and executions in Iraq, sparked fears of a similar phenomenon emerging in the Palestinian territories. -AFP