Johnston had the presence of mind to drop one of his BBC visiting cards in the street before his captors drove him away so his disappearance quickly became public. As the days and weeks dragged by, it became clear this kidnapping was different.

Far from seeking publicity for their cause or demanding a ransom, there was complete silence from the perpetrators. Not for a month was there any indication Johnston was alive: on 12 April BBC director-general Mark Thompson said he had been told the previous day by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas there was "credible evidence" the journalist was "safe and well". But that did not explain why he was taken.

The BBC, while keeping the name and face of Alan Johnston prominent, discouraged speculation about what might be going on behind the scenes to release him. It could not suppress the growing suspicion, however, that this abduction had more in common with Iraq than with the Palestinian territories. That had ominous implications: most such disappearances there end only one way.

Two months of silence Fears for his safety seemed justified after an unknown militant group, the Tawhid and Jihad Brigades, claimed to have killed the journalist to highlight the plight of Palestinians in Israeli detention. It took two months before the real kidnappers, the Jaish al-Islam, or Army of Islam, presented evidence they were holding Johnston and even then there was no sight of him . . . just his BBC identity card.

Jaish al-Islam proclaims its allegiance to al-Qaeda and it demanded the release from British detention of Abu Qatada, the cleric described as al-Qaeda's ambassador to Europe.

But it is hard to tell where Jaisah alIslam's fanaticism ends and mafia tendencies begin since it is controlled by the Dogmush clan, one of the most heavily armed crime families in Gaza.

Johnston's chances did not appear good: after more weeks of campaigning abroad and silence in Gaza, a video finally appeared on the internet in which he said he was healthy and being treated well, but shed no further light on what his captors wanted.

Meanwhile, the violence which left him as the only western journalist still based permanently in Gaza was worsening. In June, Hamas finally routed the other main Palestinian faction, Fatah, winning by force what its victory in the elections failed to secure:

complete control of the Gaza Strip.

Although Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, said freeing Johnston was a top priority, it was by no means clear that the movement could guarantee his safety, especially when, on the 100th day of his captivity, a second video showed Johnston with what he said was an explosives belt around his waist. His captors were threatening that it would be detonated if there were any attempt to rescue him by force.

Yet only two weeks later, early last Wednesday, Alan Johnston was free . . . pallid, thin but alive and unharmed.

Surreal experience The only time he was physically harmed, he said, was in the half hour before his release, when his nearhysterical captors slapped him about and banged his head against the vehicle during a wild ride through Hamas roadblocks to the handover point.

With the lucidity which won him a human-rights reporting award the same evening from Amnesty International (his father Graham collected it on his behalf in London, saying it had been "quite a day"), Johnston told the story of his ordeal. Having covered many kidnappings, he knew immediately what was happening when a car pulled in front of him and armed men jumped out. "I had imagined what it would be like dozens of times and it was exactly like that . . . it was a faintly surreal experience, as if I had lived it before."

On his release, Johnston met Ismail Haniya and Mahmoud Abbas to thank them for their efforts on his behalf . . . and rushed to the barbers to "[get] rid of that just-kidnapped look".

Yesterday he rejoined his family in Scotland and now he wants to stop "being the story". But the question lingers: was his kidnapping a matter of internal Palestinian rivalries or of wider Middle Eastern conflicts?

If Alan Johnston's captivity focused the British public's attention on the problems of the Middle East, the circumstances of his release make clear how far they are from being solved.

At his press conference he joked:

"Maybe I'll go back [to Gaza] when it's a member of the EU."