(Updates with bureau chief's release)

May 18 (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen abducted the bureau chief of the United Arab Emirates' Abu Dhabi TV in Gaza on Friday but released him shortly afterwards, a colleague said.

Following are kidnappings of foreign journalists and journalists working for foreign news organisations in the Palestinian territory over the past two years:

Jan 8, 2005 - Two Spanish reporters, Ramon Lobo and Carmen Secanella, are briefly abducted by Palestinian militants.

Aug 15 - Gunmen abduct journalist Mohammad Ouathi, a French citizen of Algerian origin. He is freed a week later.

March 15, 2006 - The last of a group of foreign hostages kidnapped during a wave of violence are freed. Militants angered at an Israeli raid on a West Bank jail seized the two French nationals and a South Korean on March 14. The three, all journalists, were among nine foreigners snatched in Gaza and the West Bank.

Aug 27 - Two journalists working for Fox News are freed unharmed, after being forced to convert to Islam. Correspondent Steve Centanni, an American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were held for two weeks.

Oct 23 - Spanish photographer, Emilio Morenatti, working for the Associated Press is snatched by four gunmen as he leaves a Gaza City apartment. He is released 12 hours later.

Jan 7, 2007 - Palestinian gunmen free journalist Jaime Razuri, a Peruvian photographer for the French news agency Agence France-Presse, after holding him for almost a week.

March 12 - The BBC's Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston disappears while driving. Army of Islam, a little-known group, in May claims responsibility for abducting him.

May 18 - Abu Dhabi Television's Gaza bureau chief Abdel-Salam Abu Askar, a Palestinian, calls his office to say he has been detained at a checkpoint set up by the Hamas Executive Force, a colleague tells Reuters. He is released shortly afterwards. A Hamas official denied Hamas was responsible.

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