UN envoy warns Gaza facing 'full collapse'

TEL AVIV, Jan 30 (AFP): A senior United Nations official on Tuesday warned the Palestinian coastal enclave of the Gaza Strip was on the verge of "full collapse".

UN Middle East peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov said a key to saving Gaza from disaster was restoring the government of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to power there, a decade after it was forced out by the militant Islamist movement Hamas.

"Without that Gaza risks exploding in our face again, this time in a far more deadly and violent manner than in the past," Mladenov said at the annual conference of Israel's Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Gaza, battered since 2008 by three wars between Israel and Palestinian militants, suffers from shattered infrastructure, a strict Israeli blockade and massive unemployment.