The Philippine Online Chronicles

ABS-CBN News identified the abductee as Patti Ganal, a 66-year old Filipina living in Los Gatos, California. She was with her husband and three other Americans when the incident occurred.

A group of armed Bedouin tribesmen stopped their minivan shortly after the pilgrims visited a monastery located at the foot Mount Sinai, where Moses was said to have received the Ten Commandments. Ganal was working as a leader of tours to Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

According to a report, Ganal offered herself as a hostage when the tribesmen demanded that two Americans get off the bus. Norma Supe, a 63-year-old nurse from Union City, California, was the other person who volunteered.

With the help of Hisham Zaki, their Egyptian tour guide who was allowed to accompany them, Ganal was able communicate with their abductors.

She said that the tribesmen were abducting tourists in order to pressure the government into releasing two imprisoned relatives of the tribesmen.

In an interview, Ganal told the ABS-CBN North American News Bureau that she used the opportunity of communicating with her captors to cousel them about God and what they should and “thou shall not” do.

The three were released six hours later. They immediately met with South Sinai governor Khaled Fouda to relay the grievances of the tribesmen. Gamal said that she also asked the governor “to implement safe travels for tourists (and) revive the previously halted convoy system where a group of policemen in a truck would follow tourist buses.”

In an interview with ABC San Francisco, Gamal said that their captors were kind, even offering them fruits and bread.

“They treat us like family and they reassured in a very nice way that we're just going to commandeer this tour and we want you to know that we are not going to hurt you," she said.