MIDDLE EAST: Armed Palestinians kidnapped Riyad Ali, an Israeli Arab producer for the CNN television network, from a car in Gaza City yesterday after asking for him by name.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A CNN correspondent who was in the vehicle with the producer said the gunmen gave no clue why they were taking his colleague away.
"We were going up a main street and a white Peugeot drove in front of us. A young man got out of his car, pulled a gun out of his trousers and asked, 'Which one of you is Riyad?'" the correspondent, Ben Wedeman, said in a CNN broadcast from Gaza.
"He said, 'I am Riyad', and they said, 'Get out of the car'." Such incidents involving journalists have been rare in Gaza and in the West Bank during the past four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Officials in the Palestinian Authority said it was attempting to discover who had abducted Ali and would try to secure his release.
Meanwhile, the Israeli death toll dropped sharply in the fourth year of a Palestinian uprising as a major shift in the balance of casualties underlined how Israel's military might was reinforcing its dominance.
Figures showed 127 Israelis were killed compared to nearly 220 the year before. It was the lowest toll since the current intifada broke out in September 2000 after peace talks collapsed.
The number of Palestinian dead was also slightly down from more than 660 last year.
A ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths that averaged three to one during the first three years is now nearer five to one.
For Israel, that reflects the success of its controversial West Bank barrier in limiting suicide bombings and of raids to kill militants - though officials will not declare that Israel has won.
For some Palestinians, the shift raises fresh questions about a revolt that has not delivered on aspirations of statehood but has rather brought bloodshed, economic collapse and increasing signs of political chaos.
"There is a school of thought that says we have been sacrificing so much but it is leading us nowhere," said Mahdi Abdul Hadi of the Passia think-tank. "Others do not look at the numbers."