Jerusalem  - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday Europe is ready to send back its team of observers to the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt "at any moment."

He said however that an agreement was first needed between warring Palestinian factions, Egypt and Israel that would allow their return and the reopening of the crossing.

The EU Border Assistance Mission in Rafah (EUBAM) was established shortly after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. It suspended its operations in June
2007 due to Hamas' Gaza take-over.

The EU has a policy of no contact with Hamas. It had until the take-over worked at the crossing with the security forces of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah.

"The European observers never left the region," Solana told reporters in Jerusalem, answering a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa question.

"There is still a very big group of observers here who are ready to take action again when it will be decided that the crossing will be open again," Solana said in Spanish.

The European diplomat held talks with Israeli leaders including President Shimon Peres, after meeting Egyptian President Hozny Mubarak in Cairo Tuesday.

A downsized team of EUBAM observers are currently staying in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, but say they are ready to return to Rafah at short notice "as soon as circumstances allow."

Foreign mediators are attempting to broker a compromise between Abbas' West Bank-based administration and the Hamas regime in Gaza, which would eventually allow the reopening of Rafah as part of a durable ceasefire in Gaza.

Egypt however is insisting that only Abbas' forces be in control of the Palestinian side of the border crossing, and not Hamas. dpa