GAZA CITY, July 19 (IslamOnline.net) - Foreign peace activists in the West Bank said Monday, July 19, they are not concerned about the latest spree of abductions including the brief one of French aid workers and top Palestinian security officials in Gaza, saying they are more concerned about the Israeli practices.

They revealed that at the time western media were making too much fuss about the four-hour long abduction of the French aid workers, four foreign peace activists were arrested by Israeli occupation troops in Nablus.

The four, an American, a Mexican and two Swedes, were kicked and harshly accosted by the Israeli troops four days before the Gaza chaos erupted.

Asking not to be named fearing that Israel would deny them access in future visits to the occupied territories, the activists vowed to pursue their support for the Palestinian people under occupation through their London-based International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

The four were taken hostage at gun point by a group of armed, masked Palestinians while drinking coffee in a restaurant in the town of Khan Yunis.

They were taken to a Red Crescent building, where their Palestinian captors fired from windows to ward off police.

The gunmen said they would let the hostages go only if Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met their demands -- rooting out corruption, implementing major political reforms and easing the hardships of the poor.

After their release, the four were deeply panicked, but said they could understand the motives behind their abductions.

“We fear most the Israeli practices and not the Palestinians, who live under deplorable conditions,” the American activist told IslamOnline.net.

She hit out at the double-standard approach adopted by western media in dealing with the abduction of the French activists.

“Such media imposed a total blackout on the arrest of four activists by Israeli occupation troops, who kicked and battered them inhumanely,” she added.

Another American activist, who identified herself as Almarie, said she will try her best to carry on with its support for the down-trodden Palestinians.

“When I return home, I will tell my people how kind the Palestinians are and expose to them the barbaric treatment of the Israeli troops, who don’t hesitate to kill or arrest anyone."

Almarie said she came to the occupied Palestinian territories to translate her sympathy toward the Palestinians into action.

“If I were to forget, I would never forget the first-hand experience of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in Balata refugee camp, who was killed in cold bloody by Israeli troops,” she said.

“I, as a mother of a 12-year-old boy, do feel for the mother of the martyr boy.”

The activists agreed that the Israeli aggressions dwarfed the “exceptional” kidnapping of foreign aid workers by Palestinian gunmen demanding reform.

A Swedish activist, identified as Ann, said I would not be panicked if I was kidnapped by Palestinians because I know them very well.

“They [the Palestinians] rather protect us against the indiscriminate Israeli attacks. What we fear the most is indeed the Israeli aggressions and [humiliating] deportations,” she told IOL.

French aid workers were released after a few hours ordeal at the hands of Palestinian gunmen in  Gaza

Most striking is the case of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old ISM member who was crushed to death  by an Israeli military bulldozer in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on March 16, 2003, as she was trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes.