GAZA CITY, 21 December 2006 — A shaky cease-fire aimed at halting a surge of fighting and avoiding a slide into civil war took hold yesterday in the Gaza Strip as President Mahmoud Abbas called on rival Palestinian factions to show further restraint.

“I call on Palestinians from all political factions to show responsibility and restraint,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

“I am confident that they all want to see security restored and the law respected so that we can realize our goals of liberation and independence.”

The Palestinian leader said that he was “not opposed to a new round of dialogue” on forming a government of national unity with Hamas, despite his call on Saturday for early elections.

The call for new polls was roundly rejected by Hamas and sparked four days of gunbattles between supporters of the ruling Islamists and Abbas’ Fatah faction in Gaza, clashes that killed 13 people and wounded dozens of others.

An uneasy calm returned to the Gaza Strip for most of yesterday, though armed men, some of them masked, continued to patrol the streets and security was beefed up around Abbas’ office — the scene of fierce combat earlier in the week.

In an overnight four-hour gunbattle with Hamas fighters, two loyalists from Abbas’ Fatah faction were killed only hours after the truce took effect late Tuesday, medics said.

The fighting turned a street in southern Gaza City into a veritable battlefield, with around 100 masked gunmen trading fire with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, witnesses said.

After appealing for calm to end one of the worst crises in the Palestinian territories in decades, both Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas announced a new cease-fire late Tuesday.

A previous truce between the factions agreed late Sunday held for barely 24 hours, with six people killed in factional fighting in Gaza on Tuesday alone.

Abbas said the new truce had been hammered out after contacts with “friendly countries and friendly leaders,” such as Jordan’s King Abdallah.

Officials in Amman had announced earlier that the king had phoned Abbas and offered to host a meeting between himself and the Hamas premier to defuse the crisis.

Abbas said he was prepared to “respond favorably” to the invitation. He was due to travel to Jordan on Sunday.

“Talks will focus on efforts to form a Palestinian national unity government and President Abbas’ call for early elections,” as well as attempts to revive peace talks with Israel, Palestinian Ambassador Attalah Khairy told AFP.

In a televised address Tuesday, Haniyeh once again rejected the election plan despite backing the cease-fire, and said he was still open to forming a coalition with Fatah.

Previous months-long talks between the two factions collapsed over Hamas’ refusal to bend to the West’s demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and agree to past peace deals.

Meanwhile, Palestinians were angry at the gunmen and despondent about the future after the gunbattles. Violence can erupt again at any moment, they said, because the enmity between followers of Hamas and those loyal to Abbas has only become more intense, and there’s no political solution in sight.

Emotions were so pitched that hospitals couldn’t place wounded from different factions in the same room, for fear of clashes between their relatives. Schools and Gaza City’s universities were shuttered, and gunmen guarded Hamas ministries and Abbas’ seaside residence and office.

Many said it’s the darkest chapter in Gaza’s blood-soaked history. “I feel bad. If I’m going to die this way, it’s very stupid, by stupid people with guns, and no one cares about the civilians,” said human rights lawyer Iyad Alami, who lives in the line of fire, between the Hamas-controlled Foreign Ministry and Abbas’ compound.

Others said the internal fighting is far harder to take than years of Israeli military strikes.“I think the Israeli shelling is easier to deal with,” said 13-year-old Khaled Khatib, who the day before had fled from a gunbattle in his Sheikh Radwan neighborhood and seen two children wounded by gunfire.

— With input from agencies