Blair cancels Gaza visit

Middle East envoy Tony Blair cancelled a trip to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday that would have marked the highest-level diplomatic visit to the territory since Hamas Islamists took control a year ago.

U.N. officials in the Gaza Strip, announcing the cancellation, said Blair still hoped to visit the coastal enclave in the future but no new date had been set.

The Quartet of international mediators -- 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 chances for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal this year.

The former British prime minister had been expected to tour an internationally funded project in the northern Gaza Strip.

Senior members of Blair's staff arrived at Israel's Erez Crossing with the Gaza Strip in the morning and waited there for two hours before the cancellation was announced. It was not immediately clear if Blair was with them.

An Israeli liaison official said Israel had not barred Blair's convoy from entering Gaza, where an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with Hamas has been in effect since June 19.

"Blair is a senior diplomat, he does not require our authorisation to enter Gaza," Peter Lerner told Reuters.

Hamas officials said before the visit was cancelled they viewed Blair's decision to go to the territory as a sign of their group's emergence from Western isolation. They said Hamas forces would ensure his safety.

Blair had not planned to meet any of Hamas's leaders during the visit. That decision was in line with a U.S.-led boycott of the group over its refusal to recognise Israel and renounce violence after it won elections in 2006, Palestinian and Western officials said.

Blair last visited the Gaza Strip as British premier in 1998.