Abbas and Hamas seek upper hand in Gaza border dispute

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday raised the possibility of sending its monitors back to Gaza's breached border with Egypt and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sought to rally Western support to sideline Hamas.

However, any such redeployment of EU border monitors seemed remote for the time being, as Hamas fighters cooperated with Egyptian forces to patch up the frontier barrier the Islamists blasted open last week to puncture an embargo tightened by Israel in response to rockets fired from the Hamas-run enclave.

Hamas's action at Rafah let hundreds of thousands of Palestinians pour into Egypt to stock up on supplies -- a coup for the Islamists in a factional struggle with Abbas that saw them seize control of Gaza in June, prompting the virtual sealing off of 1.5 million people and departure of EU monitors.

The European Union, along with other international powers, has voiced concern about the welfare of people in Gaza under the Israeli-led blockade and the European Union on Monday agreed to consider renewing the mission to oversee traffic.

"The EU is ready to consider resuming its monitoring mission in Rafah," a diplomat said after EU foreign ministers discussed the issue in Brussels. The bloc's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: "The European Union is ready to play its own role."

EU monitors were posted at Rafah under a deal with Egypt and Israel in 2005 that aimed to allay the Jewish state's concerns about arms coming into Gaza when it pulled out its own troops.

At Rafah, traffic was back down to a trickle, partly due to Egypt's efforts to stem the flow of goods to the border area.

Egyptian and Hamas forces used concrete and fencing to close two gaps. Two other breaches in the frontier remain open, an entry and an exit, under joint Hamas and Egyptian guard.