Middle East envoy Blair plans Gaza visit-sources

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Middle East envoy Tony Blair is expected to travel to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in what would be the highest-level visit by a Western official since Hamas took control a year ago, Hamas and Western officials said.

The visit would come nearly a month after an Egyptian-brokered truce curbed cross-border fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in the coastal enclave.

Since his appointment last year, Blair has shunned Hamas, in keeping with a U.S.-led boycott of the Islamist group over its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

Blair's office on Monday declined to comment on the former British prime minister's travel plans.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said the group was aware of the planned visit and was making "all the necessary security arrangements".

Rudwan, in a statement posted on a pro-Hamas website, said the expected visit proved "the stability of the security situation in Gaza".

Hamas officials said members of Blair's security team met in Gaza with Hamas security commanders to coordinate security for the visit. It is unclear how close Hamas forces will be to Blair's convoy.

Palestinian and Western officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that the trip could be delayed due to security considerations.

Aside from U.N. officials, few Western dignitaries have visited the Gaza Strip since Hamas routed more secular Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and seized control in June 2007.

The Quartet of international powers -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- appointed Blair to the envoy post a year ago with an economic focus to bolster the chances of a peace deal this year.

Most of the economic projects promoted by Blair have been earmarked for the occupied West Bank, where Abbas and his Western-backed government hold sway.

But Blair included in his economic package a major sewage project for the northern Gaza Strip.

Israel tightened its cordon of the Gaza Strip after Hamas's takeover, and it took months of lobbying by Blair and other Western officials to get Israeli permission to bring in pipes, wire and other equipment for the North Gaza Sewage Treatment Works project.

Under the Egyptian-brokered truce, Israel has started to ease its cordon, allowing in more humanitarian supplies as well as some construction materials, like cement.

Gazans view the sewage project as urgent: last year, five people drowned in a wave of raw sewage from a plant in northern Gaza.

Israel had argued that equipment needed to repair the sewage system could be used to make rockets that are fired into Israel.

(Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Mariam Karouny)