Newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad has completed the formation of an emergency goverment and was to present it to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for approval Saturday, an Abbas aide said.

If Abbas gives his blessing, the new Cabinet will be sworn in Saturday
evening, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters.

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Writer Hani al-Masri, who was offered the post of information minister, denied the report, saying the lineup hasn't been completed yet.

By swearing in the new prime minister and emergency cabinet, Abbas will be replacing the Hamas-led government he dissolved after the group's bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Abbas has tapped Fayad, a internatioanlly respected independent lawmaker and former World Bank official, to serve as prime minister of the new government in what Hamas Islamists said amounted to a coup.

"Salam Fayad will finalize the formation of his government and the new government will be sworn in today," the Abbas aide said.

"...Abbas has officially appointed Salam Fayad to be the next prime minister, and Fayad has already begun consultations to form the emergency government," Nabil Amr, Abbas's media adviser, said Friday.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri on Friday urged Fayad to turn down the new post and "not to pose himself a party to this problem."

"The appointment of Salam Fayad as a head of the emergency government is a coup against [Hamas'] legitimacy ... We ask President Abbas to withdraw the decision in order to preserve the integrity of our people," Abu Zuhri said.

The emergency government will be comprised of 11 lawmakers, Abbas' aide said Saturday.

Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said Fayad's cabinet faced daunting challenges, chief among them "to ensure the rule of law and to prevent the spread of lawlessness from Gaza to the West Bank."

Abbas sacked the three-month-old unity government he formed with Hamas on Thursday after the group routed his forces in the Gaza Strip and began imposing a new order in the enclave after days of bloody civil war.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who sits in Gaza, has refused to accept his dismissal as prime minister.

Under Palestinian law, Abbas can declare a state of emergency for up to 30 days. The state of emergency could be extended for another 30 days, but only after winning the approval of two thirds of the parliament.

Hamas has a majority in the parliament - although Israel's arrests of nearly half of Hamas' deputies put that majority in doubt and also make it hard to reach a quorum. That could enable Abbas to keep the state of emergency in place longer.

Some Fatah and U.S. diplomats have argued that Abbas could rule by decree for six months to a year ahead of new elections.

But sacked prime minister Ismail Haniyeh has ruled out setting up a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip after his Islamists routed forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Asked if he intended to declare Gaza a state after taking control of the territory, Haniyeh said in an interview with France's Le Figaro daily published Saturday: "No. Gaza belongs to all the Palestinian people and not just Hamas."

He added: "Separation is not on the agenda and never will be."

Meshal: We don't want to seize control of PA
Hamas' Damascus-based political leader Khaled Meshal said Friday his group does not want to seize power in the Palestinian Authority, and that the group recognizes Abbas as the head of the PA.

"Hamas does not want to seize power ... We are faithful to the Palestinian people," Meshal said, promising to help rebuild Palestinian homes damaged in the months of bloody infighting.

"What happened in Gaza was a necessary step. The people were suffering from chaos and lack of security and this treatment was needed," Meshal continued. "The lack of security drove the crisis toward explosion."

"Abbas has legitimacy," Meshal said, "There's no one who would question or doubt that, he is an elected president, and we will cooperate with him for the sake of national interest."

But he also warned Fatah followers not to move this conflict to the West Bank.

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, an Abbas adviser, rejected Meshaal's gesture. "There will be no dialogue with coup seekers, masked men and murderers," he said.

Meshal called on Arab League foreign ministers, who held an emergency meeting in Cairo later Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, to help mediate talks between Hamas and Abbas.

"I hope [that] ... the Arab ministerial meeting in Cairo presents a strong responsible Arab stance, as an umbrella to hold the national Palestinian dialogue to approach a Palestinian accord," Meshal said.

Meshal said Abbas' dissolution of the unity government "will not remedy the situation ... and will not solve the problem. There will be no two governments and no division of the homeland."

He said that a national unity government was the only solution, and urged Hamas in Gaza not to raise Hamas' banners and take over any more security compounds.

Haniyeh said Friday that Hamas was still committed to unity government agreement it signed with Fatah. He also called for calm in the Strip.

"I still affirm that the road is open and wide to reformulating these relations on a firm nationalistic basis," Haniyeh said, speaking after Friday prayers in Gaza City.

Haniyeh promised to restore security to the coastal territory and asked Gazans to display self-restraint and urged an end to the widespread looting of the houses and property of Fatah officials.

On Friday, Hamas gunmen seized control of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The crossing has been closed since the outbreak of fighting earlier this week.

Under an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, the crossing was monitored by European observers, and it is not clear whether the monitors or Israel would accept the arrangement announced by Hamas.

Both Egyptian security forces and the Israel Defense Forces are preparing for the possibility that masses of Palestinians will attempt to flee Gaza, Israel Radio reported Friday.

Egypt is bolstering its border with Gaza and sending armored vehicles and water hoses to keep potential refugees out of the country, the Arabic language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Friday, according to the radio.

Close to 100 Palestinian Fatah officials crossed into Egypt from Gaza Strip in the early hours Friday, fleeing the Hamas takeover, Egyptian police said.

Hours later, an Egyptian security delegation in Gaza also crossed, returning home after failing its mediation efforts between the warring factions, said an official at the Rafah border crossing.

The new Hamas-dominated reality was fraught with uncertainty and fear that Gazans will become even poorer and more isolated. In a scene which one bystander likened to looting in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein, hundreds of people swarmed through the unoccupied house of Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan after his neighborhood fell to Hamas, stripping everything, including windows, doors and flowerpots.

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