Dismissed Hamas premier Ismail Haniya made the appeal in a telephone conversation with Yemeni President Ali Abullah Saleh, his first public contact with a foreign leader since the Islamists' bloody seizure of Gaza earlier this month.

Haniya said he wanted a return to the provisions of the power-sharing accord agreed by president Mahmud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in the Muslim holy city of Mecca in February under the auspices of Yemen's powerful neighbour Saudi Arabia, his office said.

"The way out of the present crisis is through inter-Palestinian dialogue without preconditions on the basis of no winner, no loser; a government of national unity; and respect for the Mecca agreement," his office quoted him as saying.

But Haniya's appeal was swiftly rejected by the Palestinian leadership, which said there could be no dialogue without the Islamists' being held to account for their routing of the security forces in Gaza in a week of ferocious fighting in which more than 110 people were killed.

"Before any return to dialogue, there must be a return to full legality within the framework of the Palestinian Authority and those who carried out a putsch and attacked legal institutions must be held to account," Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

The Palestinian president meanwhile set up a commission of inquiry into the defeat of his security forces in Gaza as he sacked a second commander over the debacle.

"(Abbas) today ordered the formation of a commission of inquiry into the shortcomings in the Gaza Strip that failed to prevent the armed revolt by militias of the Hamas movement against Palestinian legitimacy and institutions," an official statement said.

The commission will be headed by Zakariya al-Agha, a Fatah leader from Gaza.

Abbas also fired Colonel Suleiman Khader, a commander in the central Gaza Strip, accusing him of "cowardice" after he handed over a base to Hamas forces without a fight, the statement said.

He was the second commander to face dismissal after the security forces' defeat to Hamas, who captured control of the entire Gaza Strip on June 15.

On Friday the president sacked Rashid Abu Shbak, who was for more than a year his director of internal security -- an umbrella formation of preventive security, police and civil defence.

Appointed to the post in April 2006, Abu Shbak had submitted his resignation on May 26 but Abbas refused to accept his departure at the time.

Hamas meanwhile reacted angrily to recommendations by the Palestine Liberation Organisation that early elections should be held under changed rules that would effectively exclude the Islamists.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum described the proposal from the PLO central council, a body of which his movement is not a member, as "something, which should be condemned."