Israel seeks European support to isolate Gaza

JERUSALEM, June 18 (Reuters) Israel today sought to shore up European support for a US-backed strategy of isolating Hamas in Gaza while freeing funds for President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency cabinet in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would try to persuade European Union foreign ministers in talks in Strasbourg, France today to continue a year-old aid boycott against the Islamist Hamas which refuses to recognise Israel.

In New York, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to bolster Abbas and said Israel would release frozen tax revenues and ''take perhaps more risks'' in cooperating with Abbas's government.

The Bush administration plans to lift a ban on direct aid to the Abbas's government this week.

Washington wants to accelerate talks on Palestinian statehood between Olmert and Abbas in the West Bank while isolating Hamas economically, diplomatically and militarily in the Gaza Strip.

Some European diplomats have expressed misgivings about the new US-Israeli strategy. ''It may solve the problems of today,'' said on senior EU diplomat. ''But what about the future?'' Other diplomats have pointed to lingering questions as to the legal underpinnings of the cabinet Abbas set up by decree last Thursday after Hamas's armed wing routed loyalists of his Fatah movement in Gaza.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas has said he still considers the unity government set up in March, in which he is prime minister, as the legitimate Palestinian government, and has accused Abbas of taking part in a US-led plot to overthrow him.

Before heading to Europe, Livni told Israel Radio the Jewish state ''should seize'' an opportunity presented by the political divisions between the West Bank and Gaza to separate the moderates from the more militant Hamas.

''We should take advantage of this split to the end,'' she said. ''It differentiates between the moderates and the extremists.'' Abbas was expected to convene today a second session of his 13-member emergency cabinet, whose members include an ex-guerrilla chief as interior minister.

Abbas has decreed constitutional changes to exempt his government from seeking approval in the Hamas-led parliament.

Gaza's 1.5 million people faced the prospect of greater hardship and isolation, with Israel cutting back fuel supplies and local suppliers saying the coastal enclave may run out of fuel for cars and stoves within two days.

Western powers first imposed an aid embargo after Hamas came to power in March 2006 because the Islamists failed to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals. Hamas secured alternative support from Israel's arch-foe Iran.

Abbas's government cannot be expected to do much in Gaza, now a Hamas fiefdom. But it will try to avert clashes in the West Bank, 45 km away, where Fatah holds sway under Israeli occupation and where Hamas has threatened reprisals.

REUTERS HK DS1305