Hamas-aligned officials at Gaza City's Palestine International University have been accused of forcibly converting one of their female Christian colleagues to Islam.

Sana al-Sayegh, head of the university's Science and Technology Department, disappeared in late June, reported WorldNetDaily. Days later she contacted her family and indicated that she was being held against her will and would have to marry a Muslim man who was also a professor at the university.

Another week passed and the family received a conversion certificate stating that their daughter was now a Muslim. One of the witnesses who signed the document was the university president, a known Islamist with strong ties to Hamas.

When the family complained to the Hamas authorities, they were promptly visited by a group of heavily-armed militants who insisted Sayegh's conversion and marriage had been matters of free will.

Sayegh reportedly returned to work last week, but has not contacted her family. Attempts by the family to contact her new husband have gone unanswered.

Gaza is home to a tiny Christian community of only 2,000, among a Muslim majority of more than one million. When Hamas secured outright control of Gaza in June, the group declared that the area's Christians would have to submit to strict Islamic law.