JERUSALEM, Sept 1: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees expressed outrage on Wednesday after Israel prevented its most senior executive from leaving the Gaza Strip because of a blanket closure imposed on the main crossing into Israel after a failed suicide bombing there a day earlier.

UNRWA Commissioner General Peter Hansen tried to leave the Gaza Strip to carry out business in the West Bank but was stopped at Erez crossing. "It is unheard of for the executive head of a UN agency to have his freedom of movement flagrantly curtailed by a member state of the UN in this way," UNRWA said in a statement.

The Erez crossing in northern Gaza was shut down early on Tuesday after troops stopped a Palestinian wearing explosive underpants trying to get through the terminal, a military spokeswoman said.

The would-be bomber was stopped in a section of the terminal reserved for Palestinian workers crossing into Israel which should have had no bearing on the movement of UN employees, UNRWA said.

"Despite the fact that Palestinian workers utilize an entirely different passage through Erez from that used by UN staff ... despite the fact that no international staff member has ever been implicated in any security matter ... the Israeli authorities have nonetheless refused to open Erez to UN traffic," it said. -AFP