By DPA
Gaza City : Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March 12, was handed over Wednesday to Hamas officials by his captors from the Army of Islam.
"It's incredibly good to be out," Johnston, 45, said in a brief telephone interview with the BBC television from the home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, who was dismissed as prime minister last month by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after a Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip.
The freed journalist later added: "I think I'm ok." He said the ordeal was tremendously stressful.
"We are delighted and extremely relieved," the BBC said in a statement.
Later, in a press conference just after daybreak Wednesday morning in Gaza City, sitting to the right of Haniya, who described him as a "friend of the Palestinian people", Johnston said the "last 16 weeks, of course, were the worst of my life."
Johnston said being released was "the most unimaginable relief". He thanked the Hamas movement, and all those who worked for his freedom.
He described his captors as "dangerous and unpredictable" people who "threatened my life a number of times, in various ways".
He said there was no physical violence used against him, but that at times he was mistreated.
Johnston, who appeared pale and to have lost weight, said he got ill twice during his captivity.
The journalist said he had a radio during his "appalling and terrifying experience", and was able to follow events in Gaza as well as the efforts to secure his release.
He said he had dreamed many times of being freed.
"It's hard to believe I won't wake up in that room again," he said.
Haniya, whose house Johnston was driven to after his release, reportedly received the freed journalist with hugs and welcomed him into his home in the Beach refugee camp.
Earlier Tuesday night, Hamas forces had laid siege to the area of Gaza City where the Army of Islam, a group tied to the heavily armed Doghmush clan, has its stronghold and where Johnston was assumed to have been held.
The Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group based in Gaza, then mediated between Hamas and members of the Army of Islam organisation.
Ten abducted Hamas affiliated people were thereafter exchanged for four members of the Army of Islam and observers speculated that this progress in negotiations would lead to Johnston's release.
One week ago, a video was released in which Johnston was shown wearing a bomb vest, which he said his captors would detonate if anyone tried to free him by force.
In another statement released a day later, the group said it would "slaughter the prisoner like a sheep" if their demands, including the release of prisoners with Al Qaeda ties, were not met. One of the prisoners is held in Britain.
Johnston had been held captive longer than any other foreigner abducted in Gaza.