Gaza City - EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel, touring Gaza, sharply criticized Israel on Monday for the massive destruction he saw around him, but said also Hamas bore an "overwhelming" part of the blame.

"We have to also recall the overwhelming responsibility of Hamas," Michel told local reporters as he toured Jabaliya, a crowded refugee camp north of Gaza City which was hit hard in Israel's 22-day offensive.

Brussels - The European Commission announced Monday that it was providing 58 million euros (74.3 million dollars) in humanitarian aid to vulnerable Palestinians this year, as EU foreign ministers met to discuss ways of helping Israel counter arms smuggling destined for Hamas into the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said around 32 million euros would be earmarked for Gaza, which suffered massive damage during a three-week bombing campaign by Israel.

Gaza City - Dozens of patients, many of them children, who need urgent treatment abroad have been unable to leave the Gaza Strip via Egypt over the past days, their relatives said Monday.

The West Bank-based administration of caretaker Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was no longer handing out the necessary paperwork to allow them passage through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, they said.

Geneva, Jan 24 : United Nations Relief and Works Agency chief John Ging has said that a credible investigation of the death and destruction in Gaza was necessary especially in light of the growing anger of Gazans, the increasing number of extremists in the Strip and their lack of faith in the rule of law.

It is urgent to establish accountability for death and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure through a credible mechanism, which would "channel this emotion to confidence in the rule of law," The Jerusalem Post quoted Ging, as saying.

Gaza City - A leading Palestinian human rights group Thursday put the final Palestinian death toll of a 22-day Israeli offensive in Gaza at 1,285, saying nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities were civilians.

Of the 894 civilians killed, 280 were minors and 111 were women, said the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre For Human Rights (PCHR), whose field workers have been recording the impact of the Israeli onslaught since a fragile truce took effect early Sunday.

In addition, 168 members of Hamas' "civilian" police force were killed, it said in a statement sent to journalists.

Ramallah - A top aide of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas Thursday of "obstructing" efforts to reconcile the warring Palestinian political factions, by raising "new conditions."

Yasser Abed Rabbo said Abbas' secular Fatah movement was willing to form a national unity government with Hamas.

But the radical Islamist movement was raising new conditions because it was not interested in reconciliation and was instead working to consolidate its hold over the Gaza Strip, he said.

He accused Hamas of killing, arresting and torturing Fatah fighters in Gaza.