Two Italian Red Cross representatives have been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip, the Italian Red Cross (CRI) said on Tuesday.
The two kidnap victims were named as Gianmarco Onorati, who was born in Milan but now lives in Germany, and Claudio Moroni, a psychologist from the northern town of Busto Arsizio.
The two were reported to have been travelling in a Palestinian taxi to the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis when their vehicle was stopped by an armed gang in a car.
The gang forced the Italians out of the taxi, bundled them into their own vehicle and then drove off.
Prior to the kidnapping, the two had been visiting the offices of another aid organisation active in the region.
The CRI said it was Onorati and Moroni's first day in the Gaza Strip and that they had been due to remain until Wednesday.
The pair were working on a humanitarian project set up by the CRI and the Palestinian and Israeli authorities aimed at helping conflict victims overcome their trauma.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said that Italy was doing everything possible to obtain the release of the two and was in constant contact with the local authorities and CRI officials.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry told ANSA that security forces were already searching for Onorati and Moroni and that a state of alert had been declared in the area where they had been seized.
"We are determined to free them, alive and well. This was a criminal act which goes completely against Palestinian law," the spokesman said.
Cases of foreign kidnappings have risen in the Palestinian-administered Gaza Strip over the past few months.
The last abduction was in August, when an American reporter and a New Zealand national were seized.
All the cases have been resolved quickly, often within hours, with the victims released unharmed.
The last Italian to be kidnapped in the region was Lorenzo Cremonesi, a war correspondent for Italian daily Corriere della Sera who was briefly held captive by militants in September 2005.
Cremonesi's ordeal lasted three-and-a-half hours before he was released unharmed and without the payment of a ransom. According to the journalist, his abduction was a political gesture aimed at the Palestinian administration.
