UPDATED: PALESTINIANS KIDNAP CNN PRODUCER IN GAZA

Gaza Kidnappers Free CNN Producer
GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday released an Israeli Arab producer for CNN television kidnapped a day earlier in the Gaza Strip. Police officials told Reuters that Riad Ali was turned over to them in Gaza City. CNN confirmed Ali's release. Israel Radio quoted Ali's father as saying he had spoken by telephone to his son who told him that he felt fine and was waiting to return home. There was no claim of responsibility for Ali's abduction and no word on a possible motive. Israel Radio said he was snatched by members of Islamist militant movement Hamas, which denied any role in the incident.

SEE ALSO: Palestinian kidnappers free Israeli Druze journalist
The Israel Defense Forces maintains the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is affiliated with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, is responsible for the kidnapping. Palestinian officials earlier said the abductors are in touch with Hamas activists.Al-Aqsa Martyrs` Brigade released a video cassette taped while Ali was held captive, in which he is shown saying he was kidnapped because he was a Druze and calling on Israeli Druze not to serve in the IDF. Speaking at a press conference, Ali thanked Arafat and CNN for their efforts in securing his release.....Ali is one of the relatively few Druze who never served in the IDF. According to Gil Sedan, a Channel 1 reporter who used to work with him and has remained friends, Ali "defined himself first of all as an Arab nationalist, and only afterward as a Druze... He was certainly not identified with the Israeli establishment." Therefore, "it's hard for me to believe that someone wants to settle accounts with him over something.".... According to his former boss, Rafik Halaby, his reports "often angered the right and the director-general [of the Israel Broadcasting Authority] because he presented the Palestinian side."

SEE EARLIER: CNN producer kidnapped in Gaza
An Israeli-Arab producer working for CNN was kidnapped Monday evening in the Gaza Strip by masked Palestinian gunmen, eyewitnesses said. They said Riad Ali, a Druze from the Galilee, was abducted by gunmen from the CNN offices in Gaza City. No group claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Ali, a Druze from the Galilee, has been working with CNN and other foreign networks for many years. In the past he worked as a reporter for Israel's Channel 1. CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief Ben Wedemen, speaking to CNN Monday night described Ali as a well respected journalist liked by all his colleagues. He said the kidnappers were uncommunicative, not unusual in appearance and in their early 20s. It was strange, he said, that in an "environment usually hospitable to us, for men to put a gun in my face and ask me about people I work with."