Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent held captive for four months in the Gaza strip, was freed in the early hours of Wednesday. Johnston was held in almost solitary confinement for most of his capture and threatened with death several times, he said at a press conference broadcast live on BBC this morning, 4 July 2007. He said it was the most fantastic thing to be free and said he never lost hope: “Instinctively, anyone in that situation… you can't give up hope.”