LONDON: The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, today agreed to urge fighters from their rival factions to leave the streets of Gaza.

The move came after one of the bloodiest battles between Fatah and Hamas in recent weeks left eight people dead.

“We are going to end all armed displays in the streets,” Mr Haniyeh, of Hamas, said. Mr Abbas of Fatah made no comment.

It was unclear whether the initiative would work after previous truce attempts collapsed amid deep tensions between the factions.

Colonel Mohammed Ghayeb, the head of an Abbas-allied security service in northern Gaza, died in Thursday’s clashes as Hamas gunmen attacked his home with rockets and grenades.

Moments before his death, he telephoned Palestine television, which broadcast his desperate plea for help. “They are killers,” he said of the Hamas gunmen. “They are targeting the house, children are dying, they are bleeding. For God’s sake, send an ambulance.”

The battle raged outside the house for much of the day. Six of Col Ghayeb’s bodyguards and a Hamas gunman also died, while around 36 people, including eight children and Col Ghayeb’s wife, were injured.

Hundreds of people gathered outside his damaged house yesterday prior to a funeral procession for the seven dead Fatah men.

Fatah militants attacked Hamas offices and vehicles in several places in the West Bank on Thursday, wounding a Hamas activist, Palestinian security officials said.

The talks between Mr Abbas and Mr Haniyeh began on Thursday late night, despite the two men having traded angry accusations in recent weeks.

Hamas, an Islamist militant group, controls the Palestinian government, and Mr Abbas, a moderate, is a separately elected president.

In further violence on Thursday, an Israeli raid in the West Bank killed four Palestinian civilians.

Forces entered the West Bank town of Ramallah in the first major Israeli army raid since the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and Mr Abbas agreed to try and ease tensions two weeks ago.

The two-hour raid, accompanied by heavy gun battles, turned central Ramallah into a battlefield, with dozens of cars smashed and vegetable carts overturned. Twenty Palestinians were injured, and the Israeli troops left after detaining four suspects. The clash, which came hours before Mr Olmert held a summit meeting with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, embarrassed the Israeli leader.

The Israeli cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a former defence minister, criticised the army over the raid’s timing.

Mr Olmert’s talks with Mr Mubarak had been intended to push for new Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, but were overshadowed by the violence.

Standing next to Mr Olmert in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, Mr Mubarak condemned the raid. “Israel’s security cannot be achieved through military force but by serious endeavours toward peace,” he said. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service