Hamas puts best face forward to world's media

GAZA, July 30 (Reuters) Hamas urged the world's media today to publicise what its leader called the suffering of the people of Gaza under an international embargo after a tour for journalists aimed at showing the Islamists had brought peace.

''Gaza today is better,'' Ismail Haniyeh, still calling himself Palestinian prime minister, told dozens of foreign reporters who joined a bus tour of the coastal enclave that took in a prison, a church, border posts and security installations.

''But the strangling siege ... has affected Gaza very much,'' he added, two days before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarks on a new round of peace diplomacy in Israel and the West Bank. ''I hope on your visit you have seen the suffering and will convey to the world the reality of the suffering.'' Since Hamas militias last month routed Gaza forces loyal to the Western-backed, secular Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel and Egypt have effectively sealed its borders to all but essential humanitarian traffic.

Israel and its allies, who associate Hamas with suicide bombings and rocket attacks against the Jewish state, shun the group for its refusal to renounce violence and accept Israel.

Abbas dismissed Haniyeh and formed a new government in the West Bank that has secured an end to sanctions there.

In Gaza, the end of long months of factional conflict has brought a measure of calm to the territory of 1.5 million people and, along with the freeing of a hostage British journalist, has seen many foreign correspondents return to work there.

Though food and fuel supplies remain secure, the United Nations has warned of a looming crisis as the trade embargo has forced businesses to close and increased dependence on aid.

POINTS MADE A Hamas official, acting as tour guide, drove home the point the party wished to make: ''You can see now Gaza is more calm,'' he said as the buses drove through Gaza. ''Everywhere in Gaza is under control. Everyone bids you welcome. You can go anywhere.'' Journalists were shown round a prison which once housed Hamas political prisoners and now, Hamas officials said, houses only common criminals who in turn spoke well of their treatment.

One said he was serving six months for drug offences but he expected remission for learning to recite from the Koran.

The leader of Hamas's Executive Force security arm assured reporters at the jail that he held no political prisoners.

The Hamas deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament said human rights were secure -- and condemned a brief seizure of West Bank newspapers by officials in Gaza earlier in the day.

Manuel Musallam, a priest, told reporters at his church that Hamas was ''not a religious movement'' hostile to the Christian minority but a ''political movement'' dedicated to the Palestinian people. ''I am the best friend of Mr. Haniyeh,'' he added.

Haniyeh himself, offering the journalists lunch, insisted he was not engaging in propaganda but trying to offset criticism from his opponents, who accuse Hamas of detaining dozens of Fatah activists after the June battles: ''This is not a day for public relations. This is a day for conveying the truth.'' ''There may have been some mistakes, but I stress these mistakes have been very few and will be pursued under the law.'' He repeated his willingness to negotiate with Abbas. And, blaming Israeli attacks for continued rocket fire, he said he still offered Israel a ''comprehensive and reciprocal'' truce.

REUTERS JT KP2332