Jerusalem ? Two Fox News journalists were freed in good condition Sunday after being held by kidnappers in the Gaza Strip for nearly two weeks, the longest-lasting abduction of foreigners in the chaotic Palestinian enclave in recent years.

Correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were transferred to a hotel in Gaza City by Palestinian security officers following days of efforts by Palestinian leaders to get them released.

Centanni, 60, appeared tearful but healthy upon arriving at the seafront Beach Hotel in Gaza City. He later told the Fox network that he and Wiig had been blindfolded, bound and handled roughly by the kidnappers, in a previously unknown group calling itself Holy Jihad Brigades, after being seized Aug. 14 and later forced at gunpoint to declare on videotape that they had converted to Islam.

“I’m emotional because I’m so happy to be out,” Centanni told his network on air by telephone shortly after being freed. “There were times when I thought that, you know, ‘I’m dead.’ And now I’m not. And so, thank God.”

Centanni, an American correspondent based in Washington, and Wiig, 36, a freelance cameraman from New Zealand, were taken across the border to Israel a few hours later.

The two were seized in Gaza City by masked gunmen who blocked their car and forced them into another vehicle. There was no word about them for more than a week, until Centanni and Wiig appeared in a videotape Wednesday along with a statement by the captors demanding the release of all Muslims held by the United States within 72 hours.

The U.S. rejected the demand and the deadline passed Saturday without further word from the kidnappers.

Fox news reporter Steve Centanni, left, looks on as Fox News cameraman Olaf Wiig, right, embraces an unidentified friend after their release at the Beach Hotel in Gaza City. Centanni and Wiig were released Sunday, nearly two weeks after being seized by militants in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of the militant group Hamas, said the kidnappers had acted on their own, and not as part of any established Palestinian faction or outside network such as al-Qaida. The Hamas-led Palestinian government, facing plenty of troubles due to international aid cuts and renewed hostilities with Israel, appeared eager to end the hostage episode and had urged release of the journalists.

The unusual length of the abduction, and the fact that the captors’ central demand focused on Muslim prisoners in U.S jails, left many observers puzzled about the kidnappers’ goals, affiliations and eventual plans.

Centanni and Wiig told a news conference in Gaza City that they hoped the abduction would not deter journalists from going to Gaza to report on conditions there. Ordinary Palestinians and officials are generally eager to tell the world their side of the story and for the most part have welcomed foreign journalists.

Wiig said it would be a “great tragedy for the people of Gaza”‘ if journalists stayed away, even though reporting there is difficult and at times dangerous. Earlier Sunday, an Israeli air strike near Gaza City hit an armored vehicle owned by the Reuters news agency, injuring two Palestinian journalists.