Centanni

Fox News journalist Steve Centanni, a Los Altos High School graduate, and freelance cameraman Olaf Wiig - who were kidnapped Aug. 14 and held captive by an Islamic group in the Gaza Strip - were released unharmed Sunday.

After their release, the two men were brought to a hotel in Gaza to be greeted by colleagues. They then met with the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who had called for their captors to free them.

The identity of the kidnappers remains a mystery, and there were no arrests or any indication of a ransom payment. The group released video footage of the two captives Aug. 23 and issued a vague demand for the release of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. prisons in exchange for the Fox newsmen. Centanni and Wiig pleaded for help in obtaining their release on the same video. One day after the journalists’ appeal, a government spokesman said the United States would not give in to the kidnappers’ demands.

In an interview with Fox News anchor Shepard Smith early Sunday,

Centanni said he and Wiig were sometimes held facedown in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to make a video denouncing U.S. policies and claiming they had converted to Islam.

But Centanni emphasized that the kidnapping should not deter foreign journalists from covering the plight of the Palestinians in the volatile coastal strip.

“I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story, because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind-hearted,” Centanni said. “The world needs to know more about them.”

The news was “just a giant weight off of our shoulders,” Ken Centanni of San Jose told KTVU News Sunday upon learning of his brother’s release.

Centanni graduated from Los Altos High School in 1964 and is a national correspondent based in Washington, D.C.