You're reading: Los Angeles Times: Israel admits to holding missing Gaza engineer

Dirar Abu Seesi, an engineer and deputy manager of the Gaza power plant, was reported missing last month in the Ukraine after he boarded a train to Kiev but never made it. First, bloggers reported it. Then came the mainstream foreign press, and finally, the story made it into the Israeli press via the revolving-door practice of censorship-approved quoting of foreign reports and maybe a few "I know but can't tell you" hints too. Israeli readers are accustomed to reading between the lines. A petition filed by an Israeli rights non-governmental organization wrested from the court permission for Israeli media to report with authority the basic information already out there, that the Palestinian engineer from Gaza is being held in Israel. Read the story here.