U.S. diplomat backs Abbas's control of Gaza border

JERUSALEM, Jan 22 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday the United States backed the idea of letting President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority control main border crossings in Hamas-run Gaza to help ease local hardship.

Israel has tightened restrictions on the movement of people and goods through the passages since Hamas violently took over the territory from Abbas's forces in June. Gazans often describe the area, home to 1.5 million people, as a prison.

Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, appointed by Abbas in June, floated the proposal.

Israeli officials said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had rejected the idea, but Fayyad's aides said they had been told by the Israelis that his proposal was still under consideration.

"Fayyad came up with this idea. We think it's a good concept," Jake Walles, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, said about the proposal, which would mainly effect the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza at Karni, and the Rafah border station with Egypt.

"I know he's talked with the Israelis about it, we've had discussions with them as well," Walles told Reuters.

"At this point what's needed is a more detailed discussion between Fayyad and the Israelis to try to come up with a concrete plan on how this will work."

In its push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of the year, Washington has been urging Israel to take measures to ease Palestinian hardship. Israel has pledged to do so, but has said security considerations would dictate its actions.

Citing security reasons, Israel sealed Gaza's borders on Friday, cutting off fuel supplies, but resumed shipments on Tuesday after power cuts raised fears of a humanitarian crisis and drew international protests.

"INCENTIVE FOR SMUGGLERS"

Fayyad's aides said they presented a working plan to Israel on how the Palestinian Authority could control crossings without the approval of Hamas, which uses tunnels under the Rafah border to smuggle in weapons, money and people.

One idea was to place the Palestinian security forces and administrators in a compound in a secure zone near the frontier.

"When the legitimate crossing points are shut up completely, that provides an economic incentive for smugglers and for the use of the tunnels, and that's not in anybody's interest except for Hamas, and that's one of the reasons why we're interested in Salam's idea," Walles said.

Before Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip, the Rafah crossing was controlled by Abbas's presidential guards and Egyptian security forces. European monitors were deployed on the Palestinian side of the Rafah terminal to prevent smuggling.

Last month, Israel angered Egypt by accusing it of not doing enough to prevent the smuggling. Walles said Egypt had asked for Washington's help and would buy equipment in the United States to try to deal with the problem.

A senior Egyptian diplomat told Reuters that 750 Egyptian soldiers patrolling the Rafah border under an agreement with Israel, which pulled its troops out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, were not sufficient to end smuggling.

"We also told them (Israel and the U.S.) that we lack the high tech equipment that allows us to discover tunnels without having to dig deep for them," the Egyptian diplomat said. (Editing by Caroline Drees)