At least four Palestinians were killed overnight in clashes between Hamas and Fatah throughout the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported early Monday morning.

Some 5 militants from both sides were wounded in a gun battle which raged north of Gaza City.

In the city of Beit Hanun, Hamas operatives blew up offices belonging to Fatah. No injuries were reported.

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On Sunday, gunmen loyal to the governing Hamas movement abducted the head of a key security force loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, a Palestinian security source said.

The source identified the abducted commander as Brigadier General Sayyed Shabban, the head of National Security Forces in the central Gaza Strip.

He is believed to be the most senior official from either side to have been abducted so far in the factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah and Hamas both accepted Sunday a Saudi Arabian invitation to hold unity talks in Mecca, after four days of internecine clashes in the Gaza Strip left at least 27 dead and dozens wounded.

Gunbattles between the rival factions continued in the streets of Gaza into the late evening on Sunday. Clashes in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis killed 19-year-old Allah Alian and left eight people wounded. Four others were wounded in gunfights in the northern Strip.

Al-Arabiya television reported Sunday that Saudi King Abdullah invited the factions for talks in Mecca "without foreign intervention."

A Palestinian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Hamas had accepted the invitation. "We welcome the invitation by His Majesty King Abdullah and the government appreciates this generous position, which comes in an attempt to resolve Palestinian internal differences," said Taher An-Nono.

Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a senior Fatah official and an Abbas adviser, also welcomed the invitation and said: "We are ready to go to the Kingdom and to start talks."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called on Palestinians on Sunday to use "dialogue and reason" to preserve national unity.

"We appeal to all our people, you have to preserve national unity. The language of dialogue and reason must prevail," Haniyeh said at the start of an emergency cabinet meeting.

Haniyeh urged Abbas to pull Fatah gunmen off the streets. But Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said the Hamas-led executive forces were "the major element in tensions and in the continuation of sabotage and killing."

The offer came after a fourth consecutive day of clashes, which seemed to have spread to the West Bank when Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades gunmen walked into a bank in Nablus and kidnapped five Hamas members, including the bodyguard of Deputy Prime Minister Nasser al-Shaer.

Earlier Sunday evening, Palestinian gunmen shot dead a member of a Hamas-led police force, local residents and hospital officials said.

A Hamas spokesman said Nasser Shurrab, a member of the Islamist movement's "Executive Force," was "assassinated by members of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah" in southern Gaza.

Also Sunday, a bomb blast damaged the Gaza City home of a bodyguard of Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan.

Unity talks fail
Over the weekend representatives of Fatah and Hamas met in an effort to end the fighting, but the talks collapsed.

The sounds of exploding grenades and automatic weapons fire echoed across Gaza City as gunbattles raged through the night Saturday, witnesses said. But there were no casualties reported in either the bomb blast or the fighting.

The clashes are the worst among Palestinians since the Islamist Hamas group rose to power a year ago, unseating Abbas's once dominant Fatah. Efforts to forge a unity government between the two have so far failed.

In the latest skirmishes, Hamas gunmen and members of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service clashed outside its main headquarters in Gaza, witnesses said. Snipers took up positions on rooftops as Hamas and Fatah gunmen exchanged fire below.

There were also gunbattles outside the headquarters of the Hamas-led police in the city, witnesses said.

Some fifty people were kidnapped throughout the weekend and fifty others wounded.

The incidents began Thursday night, following the death of a Hamas militant who was killed in a car bomb in the Jabalya refugee camp.

Hamas blamed Fatah for the blast, but the group affiliated with Abbas maintained that the explosion was the result of a "work accident," a euphemism for an accidental blast resulting from the preparation of an explosive device.

On Friday, 14 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, including a two-year-old toddler who was killed by Fatah gunfire.

Six Palestinians were killed Saturday, and dozens were injured. At least 50 militants from both groups were abducted and are being held hostage.

Both Fatah and Hamas announced that they were cancelling talks for the creation of a national unity government in the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, who is currently in Madrid, reiterated his warning that if the talks for the creation of a unity government failed, he would move ahead with his plans for early elections.