Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an international force in the Gaza Strip, which is now controlled by the rival Hamas movement.

"We have insisted on the necessity of deploying an international force in the Gaza Strip to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid and to allow citizens to enter and leave freely," Mr Abbas said at a joint news conference in Ramallah after talks with visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Mr Abbas noted the estimated 4,000 Palestinians who had been blocked at the Rafah crossing terminal on the Egyptian border, shut for nearly a month since the Hamas takeover.

Eleven are reported to have died in the deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

Mr Prodi said a deployment of an international force would require agreement of all the parties involved and said the question "has not yet been examined in detail".

Mr Abbas' call threatened to further widen the yawning Palestinian chasm.

The chief of Hamas' parliamentary bloc, Salah al-Bardawil, said the movement would not accept any foreign troops in Gaza.

"The arrival of such a force would be a flagrant intervention in Palestinian affairs and a new occupation that we totally reject," he said.

Militants from Islamist Hamas overran forces loyal to the moderate Mr Abbas in Gaza almost a month ago, effectively splitting the Palestinians into two entities, with the President controlling the occupied West Bank and Hamas running Gaza.

Israel closed off the overcrowded Gaza territory, following the takeover by the group whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

The country has allowed limited humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.

The closure has sparked warnings of a humanitarian crisis in the territory, one of the most densely populated places on Earth where more than 80 per cent of the 1.5 million residents depend on aid.

- AFP