Israeli minister seeks NATO forces for Gaza

JERUSALEM, Jan 14 (Reuters) Israeli cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman called for NATO to deploy forces in Gaza after what he predicted would be an ''inevitable'' Israeli military operation in the coastal strip, a spokeswoman said today.

Lieberman, a far-right minister responsible for strategic affairs, had urged when he was named to the cabinet in November that Israel recapture part of Gaza. Israel quit the Palestinian territory in 2005 after a 38-year military occupation.

Lieberman's spokeswoman, Irena Etinger, confirmed Israeli media reports that he had raised the issue with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a meeting yesterday.

''He said a military confrontation in Gaza is inevitable'' to fight Palestinian militants smuggling weapons from neighbouring Egypt and firing rockets at southern Israel, Etinger said.

She said he added that ''the results of such a (military) action should be the entry of 30,000 NATO forces to deploy in Gaza'' so as to prevent a further armed build-up.

Etinger would not say what Rice said in response.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had no immediate comment.

Olmert had been cool last year to suggestions made by some Europeans to post peacekeeping troops in Gaza as part of an overall ceasefire. A November 26 truce that applies to Gaza but not the occupied West Bank has largely held.

Israel has generally objected to proposals to deploy foreign forces in Gaza or the West Bank, out of concern such a presence would limit its ability to go after militants.

But the Jewish state did agree to a deal mediated by Rice in late 2005 to post European observers to help secure a reopened border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

Deputy Defence Minister Efraim Sneh of the leftist Labour party rejected Lieberman's idea.

NATO troops in Gaza ''wouldn't provide a solution but rather worsen the problem'' because Islamic militants would likely regard them as an enemy, just as they do Israel, Sneh told Israel Radio.

REUTERS SP BST1417