Israel allows Gazan pilgrims through border

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is allowing hundreds of Palestinians from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to cross Israeli territory on their way to the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

About 490 Palestinians traveled in 10 buses under Israeli police escort from Gaza's Erez crossing to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where they were to enter Jordan and continue on to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi authorities have agreed to allow 7,500 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to make the pilgrimage this year, the same number as in 2006, a Palestinian official said.

Colonel Nir Press, head of the Israeli military's liaison office for the Gaza Strip, said in addition to the 491 pilgrims that crossed on Sunday, up to 409 more Palestinians from the territory would use the same route on Monday.

He said Israel, which pulled its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 but maintains control of the area's borders, regards the pilgrimage as a "humanitarian issue" for the coastal area's 1.5 million people.

Israel has tightened border restrictions on the Gaza Strip since Hamas Islamists violently took over the territory in June.

Earlier this month, about 2,200 Palestinian pilgrims heading for Mecca crossed from Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah border terminal, which has been largely closed since Hamas's takeover.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Wafa Amr in Ramallah, Writing by Brenda Gazzar; Editing by Charles Dick)