The British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is touring the Middle East, has backed the call by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for early elections.
Mr Abbas said elections may resolve the political crisis that has raised fears of a Palestinian civil war.
But the governing Hamas movement, which won an election earlier this year, immediately said the call was illegal and accused the president of launching a coup.
Speaking in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, after talks with the President Hosni Mubarak, Mr Blair said the world should support Mr Abbas.
Mr Abbas today vowed there would be no civil war in the Palestinian territories despite an upsurge in internal violence.
'Palestinian blood remains prohibited. We are not going to allow us to be dragged into a civil war,' Abbas said in a speech broadcast live on Palestine TV, commenting publicly for the first time on days of growing unrest in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Abbas said the elections should be held at the earliest opportunity. He said that in the interim period all efforts should be made to form a unity government made up of technocrats that could lift Western sanctions on the Hamas administration.
Early Palestinian elections will not be able to be held until the middle of next year for legal and technical reasons, a senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas has said.
Saeb Erekat said Abbas first had to issue a presidential decree covering the early parliamentary and presidential polls.
After that, voter rolls would need some 90 days to be updated.
Abbas had called for a political solution to resolve the crisis but made clear he had the right to sack the government.
Hamas, which surprised Fatah to win parliamentary elections in January, has said it would regard any call for fresh elections as a coup.
Abbas was elected separately in early 2005 in a presidential poll that Hamas did not contest.
