JERUSALEM (AFP-EJP)--- Israel’s foreign ministry said that it has authorised a visit to the Gaza Strip by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton through its territory.

Israel has routinely banned foreign officials from crossing into Gaza since Hamas' violent takeover of the strip in 2007, maintaining that such visits bolster the Islamic group. Officials can enter Gaza from Egypt.

Monday's statement by the foreign ministry said that it "has decided to facilitate their entry to the Gaza Strip in order to allow them to get a first hand impression of humanitarian activities taking place in that area."

The authorisation came "in response to the special requests" by Ban and Ashton, the statement said, without specifying when their visit might take place.

On Saturday, Ashton had said she was hopeful of visiting the Gaza Strip during a Middle East trip later this month, adding that she planned to go to Israel on March 17.

"As you know the high representative has expressed her wish to go to Gaza and has been in discussions with the Israeli authorities about facilitating this visit," Ashton’s spokesman, Lutz Guellner, said in Strasbourg.

"It is true that the Israeli government has so far reacted positively to this request.

"We are continuing to work on the final programme for the trip and are continuing to talk with the Israeli government in relation to this."

Ashton said at the weekend that she had asked to go to Gaza to see how EU funding for the territory was being used.

"We are providing a huge amount of aid into Gaza and I'm very interested to make sure that we are seeing the benefits of that aid going in," Ashton said at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cordoba, Spain.

Ashton's office will have to make administrative-level contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza, in order to expedite the visit. Political-level talks with the group, which is listed on the EU's list of terror groups, are suspended under an informal agreement by the Quartet, comprising the EU, UN, US and Russia, in 2006.

Ashton's spokesman refused to rule out a high-level meeting when questioned by press in Brussels on Monday, however.

In December, Israel barred a delegation of European MPs from travelling to Gaza after initially authorising the visit.

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin managed to get in via Egypt late last month, becoming the first European foreign minister to do so for more than a year.

Following the visit Martin slammed the "inhumane... siege" of the Israeli-blockaded territory saying it was "very counter-productive to a peace process."

Ban said in New York meanwhile that he would attend an Arab League summit in Libya later this month to push forward the Middle East peace process after a planned tour of the region.

The UN chief also confirmed his attendance at a ministerial meeting of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet in Moscow on March 19 to encourage an early resumption of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The secretary general said he was also planning to visit some unspecified countries in the region: "That will be announced soon. I'm in the process of discussing this matter."

Israel and the Palestinians meanwhile have agreed to give the US-brokered negotiations another chance.

They began on Monday their first indirect talks.