JERUSALEM — Israel is negotiating to hand over greenhouses in Gaza settlements to Palestinians after its planned withdrawal in the summer, an official said yesterday.

Yonatan Bassi, head of Israel's Disengagement Authority, told reporters that peppers and tomatoes grown in the greenhouses could help feed the 1.3 million Palestinians packed into the narrow coastal strip. Luxury items such as flowers and strawberries would be exported, mainly to the European Union.

"Israel is negotiating now with America and with others, with the international community, to leave all the infrastructure of the greenhouses to the Palestinians through a third party," Bassi said, without giving further details.

A study published last year by the United Nations and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said seven out of 10 Palestinians were living on insufficient food, and the United Nations put unemployment in Gaza at more than 22 percent.

A USAID official in Tel Aviv said 3,000 Palestinians were working in settlement greenhouses and that turning them over to Palestinian ownership could create an additional 7,000 jobs.

With each Gaza laborer supporting about eight other people, that could help an estimated 63,000 people.

Bassi also said all the residents of the largest Gaza settlement, Neve Dekalim, could move to Nitzan, a failed community between Ashdod and Ashkelon on Israel's southern coastline. A contractor who started building the community ran into liquidity problems. Bassi said the state could buy it back and offer it to the settlers.

Bassi said most of the Gaza settlers would accept compensation and leave voluntarily. However, settler leaders insist that most of the settlers will resist evacuation.