EU`s Solana Says Supports Palestinian Unity Talks

`Let`s see what`s at the end and we will talk when it comes to an end, but in principle we are supporting them,` he added.

The European Union's top diplomat visited the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Friday and voiced support for efforts to end the schism between the militant Palestinian Islamists and their Western-backed, secular rivals Fatah.

In his first trip to the enclave since Hamas took it over in 2007, Solana met U.N. officials and Palestinian community leaders. But he maintained an EU policy boycott by avoiding contacts or meetings with Hamas rulers.

A dozen Palestinian factions including Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah began reconciliation talks in Cairo on Thursday to try to agree by March 20 on a unity government.

A deal could lead to the lifting of Israel's blockade of the coastal strip and boost Abbas's peacemaking efforts with Israel.

Solana said the European Union would await the outcome of the talks before taking a position. A group of former foreign ministers this week said it was time to end the ostracism of Hamas and start talking to the militants.

Solana was cautious in his comment on the proposal, stressing that reconciliation must come first.

"It is just a first step ... let's see what happens, but in principle, as the people in Cairo know very well, we are supporting that process," Solana told reporters in Gaza City.

"Let's see what's at the end and we will talk when it comes to an end, but in principle we are supporting them."

The United States, Israel and the European Union shun dialogue with Hamas, citing its refusal to renounce violence, to recognise Israel and accept past peace agreements.

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Hamas leaders maintained their rejection of the demands.

"We are not willing and we do not want to recognise the Zionist occupation (Israel)," said senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar in Cairo on Wednesday.

Solana said the EU and the United States would attend a Western donors' conference in Egypt next week that will seek to raise some of the $2.8 billion estimated as needed for reconstruction in Gaza, following Israel's 22-day offensive.

The European Commission said on Friday it would pledge 436 million euros ($552.6 million).

Part of the aid would be spent on removing unexploded ordnance and rubble, helping traumatised children, funding work schemes and providing shelter, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.

More than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the fighting which ended on Jan. 18 with a shaky truce. But there have been incidents almost daily ever since, with rockets fired from Gaza into Israel and Israeli air strikes.

Israel's bombing focuses on smuggling tunnels from Gaza into next-door Egypt, which it says Hamas will use to re-arm.

Solana said the European Union, which once oversaw the operation of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, was ready to redeploy monitors there once a Palestinian reconciliation deal was reached.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, inspecting war damage in Gaza on Friday, called it "senseless destruction, destroying the lives of ordinary people, creating misery and not creating peace and not creating security".

Stoere said militants who launched rockets into Israel were responsible for setting off the conflict "but the kind of destruction we have seen here ... goes beyond what international law allows in terms of response".