Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday urged rival forces from Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement to show restraint and vowed there would be no civil war.
Clashes between Hamas and Fatah have become more frequent since the Islamist-led government deployed a new, 3,000-member paramilitary unit last week. A cabinet spokesman said the new force would not be disbanded despite calls from Abbas to do so.
'I urge all our people to be calm and show more self-restraint,' Haniyeh told reporters after attending talks in Gaza between various factions aimed at defusing tensions.
While no agreement was announced after the talks, Haniyeh said he was 'more assured' about the Palestinian situation. Speaking before the meeting, he said: 'Civil war is a term that does not exist in the Palestinian dictionary.'
The battle for control of security in Gaza has raised fears of civil war, which could cripple the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Israel's position to impose final borders with the Palestinians unilaterally in the absence of peace talks.
The new Hamas force battled gunmen from a Fatah-dominated security service in Gaza on Monday in fighting that killed a Jordanian diplomat's driver and wounded several other civilians.
Fatah leaders said tensions would continue as long as the Hamas-led force remained on the streets in defiance of Abbas, who seeks a two-state solution to end conflict with Israel and has urged Hamas to moderate its stance.
'They said the force was formed to back up the police and the security forces but we have seen them exchanging fire with the police and the security services,' Samir al-Mashharawi, a senior Fatah leader, said after the meeting.
He said other Palestinian factions besides Fatah voiced objections about the Hamas force to Haniyeh in the talks.
Hamas took power in March after trouncing the long-dominant Fatah in parliamentary elections last January. The group is sworn to Israel's destruction but has largely abided by a truce in attacks on Israelis for the past 15 months.
Israeli security forces on Tuesday captured the top Hamas commander in the occupied West Bank. Israel accuses Ibrahim Hamed of masterminding suicide bombings during a more than 5-year-old Palestinian revolt.
The Israeli army said Hamed, 41, was arrested in the West Bank city of Ramallah, ending a manhunt launched in 1998. Hamas said the arrest would not dent the group's capabilities.
'BE RATIONAL'
Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said the Palestinian government was committed to keeping the new 'back-up force' because its aim was to end chaos in Gaza, an impoverished seaside territory of 1.4 million people.
Jordan's representative to the Palestinian Authority urged Palestinians 'to be rational' and end clashes.
'These are not useful but on the contrary destroy the Palestinian achievement made in the last 10 years,' Yahya al-Qarala said at a funeral in Gaza for his driver, referring to Palestinian self-rule under the 1993 Oslo accords.
The government is also trying to stave off financial collapse after the West cut off direct aid and Israel halted tax payments over Hamas's refusal to recognize the Jewish state.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar left on Tuesday for a trip to East Asia to try to drum up funds and bolster political support for the new government.
The growing Palestinian woes come as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes his first visit to Washington as leader.
Olmert will meet President Bush on Tuesday and is expected to discuss his plans for the West Bank, which would include dismantling remote Jewish settlements while strengthening larger enclaves if peace talks remain frozen.