The head of the main U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians urged international powers on Wednesday to act to ease an effective trade embargo on the Gaza Strip and send their new envoy Tony Blair to visit the enclave.

Karen AbuZayd, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said by telephone from Gaza that the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers should take steps to ease trade at their meeting in Lisbon on Thursday.

Otherwise, she told Reuters, an economic crisis in the territory, where Hamas Islamists seized control a month ago, could deepen to the point where nearly all its 1.5 million people would be reduced to dependence on food aid handouts.

"If the economy doesn't work ... then we will have to have food for many more people," she said in an interview.

At present, UNRWA provides rations to 825,000 people classed as refugees and the United Nations' World Food Programme aids a further 200,000 people, AbuZayd said.

Noting that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called this week for all border crossings with Israel and Egypt to reopen, AbuZayd said she hoped Ban's meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the EU and Russian representatives who make up the Quartet would bring progress towards this:

"I hope that that's discussed and that there's something positive comes out of the Quartet," she said.

Blair, who was appointed the Quartet's envoy last month when he stepped down as British prime minister, is expected in the region shortly. AbuZayd said: "We'd very much like to get him down to Gaza to see the realities on the ground."


SANCTIONS

A refusal to deal with Hamas by Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank has meant major crossing points, including the main freight terminal with Israel at Karni, have been effectively closed since June's fighting between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction.

Israel says it cannot ensure its security at the crossings.

Temporary arrangements are allowing basic food imports, AbuZayd said. But shortages of building materials have frozen construction projects and the inability to export helped drive some 3,000 businesses to the wall last month alone, she added.

"Everyone's trying to help on this. At least they're saying all the right things," she said of recent meetings with interested parties, including Israeli officials.

But AbuZayd said she was concerned at suggestions that, while all of those involved say they will not let Gazans starve, the situation could continue as long as Hamas, which won a parliamentary election last year, stayed in control.

"I get quite frightened by those kind of statements," she said. "This place has been under sanctions for year and a half now. It's in a steady decline. That's why we don't want it to go any further. We've added thousands of people to our food distribution lists because of people not getting their salaries.

"We don't want to add the rest of the Gaza population.

"Is that what they want to do? Just give us money for food distribution and emergency activities or to allow a little bit of economic activity?

"Let's let some people at least have the dignity of having a job."