RAMALLAH - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will ask Israel on Sunday for his forces to be given control of the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian official said.
Abbas is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem for talks focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"During the talks, president Abbas is going to ask Olmert that the (Palestinian) Authority forces deploy on the frontier between Gaza and Egypt," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP.
This would enable people and goods to cross in an orderly and legal fashion.
Palestinian militants last Tuesday blasted breaches in the huge wall corralling the Gazans.
Hundreds of thousands of people, confined by an Israeli blockade which has allowed only minimal humanitarian aid to cross into the Gaza Strip, have since flooded into the Egyptian border town of Rafah.
An estimated 700,000 people crossed over to buy everything they could afford and find, from basic food supplies to blankets to fuel and cigarettes.
Erekat said that during the meeting with Olmert, Abbas would "reiterate the demand that Israel lift its siege of the Gaza Strip."
The Jewish state closed the frontiers with Gaza after Hamas, which won democratic elections subsequently ousted forces loyal to Abbas in June 2006.
Last week Israel turned its prolonged blockade of Gaza into a full-scale lockdown, blocking all fuel shipments and humanitarian aid, in a bid to stop the firing of rockets from the Hamas-controlled territory.
On Tuesday, Israel allowed in shipments of cooking gas and fuel to power Gaza's sole power station, which had ground to a halt on Sunday night.
The Palestinian Authority is going to seek the reopening of the Rafah terminal which, since November 2005, has functioned under the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian accord, sponsored by Washington and involving the deployment of European observers.
Rafah terminal can only operate with close coordination between Israel, which operates surveillance cameras, the Palestinians, Egypt and the Europeans.
Israel has largely kept the terminal shut as part of its policy of blockading the territory controlled by Hamas, which does not recognise the Jewish state.
On Saturday, Abbas accused Israel of inflicting "collective punishment" on the Gaza Strip, while he also called on Palestinian groups to stop firing largely ineffectual rockets against Israel.
01/26/2008 15:59 GMT