"On the internal front, the cause of everybody's concern is what is called the security chaos, or more precisely, standing on the brink of a civil war," Abbas said in a televised speech from the city of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

The danger posed by factional violence -- in which some 50 Palestinians were killed in recent weeks -- was equal to and sometimes exceeded the "danger of occupation," he said, citing Israeli military attacks that have caused casualties.

In the Gaza Strip, forces from Abbas's Fatah faction and Islamist Hamas fought a three-hour gun battle near the Karni commercial crossing, the most serious flare-up in violence between the two groups in two weeks.

One member of Abbas's Presidential Guard was wounded.

A Hamas source said the group's gunmen had been in the area to monitor Israeli forces near the Gaza border when they came under fire from the Presidential Guard.

Hamas, which formed a unity government with Fatah in March, denied any casualties on its side. But a senior Western security source said several Hamas members had been wounded and accused the group of hiding its casualties.

Egyptian columnist Wael Abdel Fattah wrote in the independent weekly Al-Fagr newspaper that Arabs blame the defeat for "everything" - from "price hikes, dictatorship, religious extremism, sectarian strife, even sexual impotence."