JERUSALEM - Two journalists, who have been held for nearly two weeks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, were freed unharmed on Sunday. 

Fox television correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig, were greeted by a tumultuous welcome at a Gaza City hotel on Sunday –  just minutes after they were released by a previously unknown Palestinian militant group, called the Holy Jihad Brigades. 

Just hours earlier, the two appeared in a video, in which they criticized Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip, and said they had converted to Islam. Speaking after their release, Centanni said he and Wiig had been coerced into making the statement. 

There have been at least seven abductions of foreigners and journalists in Gaza since August of last year, when Israel disengaged from the area.  Several of those released previously said they had also been coerced to make statements as a condition of their release.

The abduction of Centanni, a veteran American journalist, and Wiig, a New Zealand-born cameraman, was the longest kidnapping to date of foreigners in the Gaza Strip.  

The kidnappers had demanded that the United States release Muslim prisoners by Saturday.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of the militant group Hamas, says the kidnappers had no ties to al-Qaida.

Palestinian officials condemned the kidnapping, while the U.S. government said it does not give in to terrorists.