President Mahmoud Abbas repeated a call for the lifting of an international economic blockade of a new Palestinian unity government after talks with French President Jacques Chirac today.
The Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators, comprising the United States, EU, Russia and the United Nations, is split over how to deal with the planned government between Mr Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas.
Speaking after meeting Mr Chirac, Mr Abbas told reporters: "What we asked for is that the new government that will be formed not be subjected to the same embargo to which the current government is being subjected."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Jacques Chirac after they met for talks at the Elysee Palace in Paris today
The Quartet repeated a demand earlier this week that any Palestinian government renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept interim peace deals. Though the unity government fell short of directly meeting those demands, Western diplomats said the agreement between Hamas and Fatah widened divisions within the Quartet.
The United States and Israel want to continue to shun the unity government; Russia and some other European governments favour a softer line.
Meanwhile, four Palestinians were killed in clashes between rival clans in the Gaza Strip today in the most intense violence since a coalition deal was reached this month between Fatah and Hamas parties, hospital officials said.
They said a Palestinian, who belonged to the Islamist Hamas movement, was shot and killed by gunmen from a rival clan amid a family feud in the early hours of this morning.
Hamas said the man killed was a local commander of its armed wing. The killing triggered a clash in which a member of the other clan and a female relative, both Fatah supporters, died.
A bystander was also killed in the fighting, which wounded 18 other people nearby.
Both families said the fighting was an internal dispute and was not motivated by political rivalries.