Leaders of Palestinian factions including rivals Fatah and Hamas have pledged on Tuesday to refrain from violence in settling Palestinian problems after a firefight between Hamas activists and Palestinian police left three dead.
Farouk Kaddoumi, a leader of Fatah - the ruling faction of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said the exiled leaders of Palestinian groups agreed in Damascus that dialogue should be the only way to solve their disputes.
Mr Kaddoumi said the leaders agreed to "call all Palestinian powers and factions to ban the use of weapons to solve internal differences".
The leaders also agreed to "refrain from all forms political and media provocations that can harm the interests of our people and their national unity".
Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal acknowledged the call, but defended his militant group's right to resist Israeli occupation and to have a role in Palestinian political life at the same time.
"So long as our land is occupied it is the right of the Palestinian people and their factions to combine resistance and political activities. Resistance and its arms are directed against the occupation while political activity is part of re-arranging the Palestinian home," said Meshaal.
But "we refuse any inclination toward internal feuding because our fixed national principles set Palestinian blood as a taboo," he told reporters after the meeting that also comprised less senior leaders of key factions - the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
On Sunday, a Palestinian police commander and two civilian bystanders were killed in firefights between policemen and Hamas gunmen. Fifty people were wounded when militants tried to storm a police station shortly afterwards, police said.
Palestinian police said the fighting began when a Gaza police patrol pulled over a carload of Hamas gunmen who were flouting a new ban on the public display of weapons agreed to by political leaders of the various militant factions.
Hamas has said the militants fought police on "solely in self-defense" and they also acted to protect homes of Hamas political leaders that came under gunfire from policemen.
On Monday, Palestinian policemen stormed into Gaza's parliament building demanding a crackdown on militants, and deputies called on Abbas to sack the cabinet for failing to stamp out chaos in the streets.
The two challenges highlighted Mr Abbas's uphill struggle to impose law and order in the Gaza Strip to make it the proving ground of a future Palestinian state after Israel's withdrawal of settlers and soldiers completed last month.