GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Thousands of activists from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party demonstrated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, burning abandoned cars, shooting in the air and demanding corrupt leaders resign after their devastating election loss to the militant Hamas movement.

With Hamas winning a strong majority in parliamentary elections, Abbas said he will ask the Islamic group to form the next Palestinian government, but Fatah rejected a role in the new Cabinet and Israel ruled out peace talks in what could be the first steps to isolate the militant group after its election victory.

Acting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asked world leaders not to legitimize a government led by Hamas, saying elections are not a “whitewash” for terrorist groups.

Livni told reporters that Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer opened a window of opportunity in peace efforts, but with the election of Hamas, “the Palestinians slammed it shut.”

In the first real violence since the vote, an argument between about 20 Hamas and Fatah loyalists in the Gaza town of Khan Younis grew into gunfire and rock-throwing Friday that left three injured. One man was treated for gunshot wounds and two for minor injuries caused by rocks, according to witnesses and hospital officials.

On Friday night, thousands of Fatah activists burned the abandoned cars outside the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza City and shot in the air, calling for the resignation of corrupt party officials and insisting that Fatah form no coalition with Hamas.

About 1,000 angry party activists, including 100 gunmen, drove by Abbas’ Gaza residence, although he was not home at the time. The Fatah defeat was seen as a rebuke to veteran _ and corrupt _ party leaders who have resisted calls for reform by its young guard.

After evening prayers, the protesters went back to Abbas’ house, and fired in the air before marching and driving through the city, waving Palestinian flags, yellow Fatah flags and posters of the late Yasser Arafat.

“We don’t want to join the Hamas government. We don’t want corrupt leadership. We want reform and we want to fire all the corrupt,” one group of thousands chanted at an earlier demonstration at the Gaza City parliament building.

“This demonstration is a natural reaction of Fatah supporters and members. We have one demand: that the (Fatah) Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council should resign immediately,” said Samir Mashrawi, a local Fatah leader who lost in the election. The protesters did not specifically call for Abbas’ ouster.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, about 500 Fatah members, including some gunmen shooting in the air, marched to the local Fatah office, where one of them read a statement demanding the resignation of the central committee.

Polls published Friday in Israeli newspapers showed support among Israelis for talks with a Palestinian government led by Hamas.

The United States and some European nations said Hamas must renounce violence and drop its demand to destroy Israel.

But Mahmoud Zahar, an incoming Hamas parliamentarian and one of the group’s top leaders in Gaza, said the organization had no immediate plans to change its policy to recognize Israel or to restart peace efforts.

“Israel has nothing to give for the Palestinians. All the time they were wasting our time … implementing nothing,” he said. “If the Israelis have something to fulfill the basic demand of the Palestinian people concerning the occupied territories, detainees, question of Jerusalem, our national interests, we are going to re-evaluate this argument.”

U.S. Consul-General Jacob Walles said Washington would halt aid to Palestinians should a Hamas-led government come to power and not renounce terror.

The U.S. gave the Palestinian Authority $400 million in direct aid last year and several million more through U.N. charities, Walles said. Some was given directly to Palestinian ministries.

“I don’t see how we would do that if those ministries were controlled by Hamas,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to meet in London on Monday with U.N., Russian and European leaders as the so-called “Quartet” of would-be international peacemakers evaluates the results and tries to decide how to proceed.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said he had asked Abbas to meet Sunday to discuss forming a new government. Abbas’ office said no appointment has been made yet. Abbas said separately he would ask Hamas to lead the next government.

Israel was unprepared for the Hamas landslide. Foreign and Defense Ministry scenarios had put such a stunning blow to the long-ruling Fatah as a low probability, officials said.

But after the rout, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quickly ruled out talks.

“The state of Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian administration if even part of it is an armed terrorist organization calling for the destruction of the state of Israel,” Olmert said.

In Syria, a prominent Hamas leader pledged to continue resistance against Israeli occupation, although he did not specify if that meant violent opposition, and he stressed that the group would not yet recognize the Jewish state.

“As long as there is occupation and so long as our people’s rights are usurped, our stand will remain as it is. We would resist the (Israeli) occupation to restore our rights,” Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Hamas movement, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hamas ideology does not recognize the presence of a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East. In recent years, however, some Hamas leaders have grudgingly accepted the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, as long as it is understood to be only a stage toward freeing the rest of Palestine _ meaning Israel.

Livni said she spoke to several foreign ministers and told them of the need to send “a very clear, unequivocal message … that elections are not a whitewash for terror.”

“In these talks, I also made clear what was decided in the consultation with the acting prime minister, that Hamas cannot be a partner of Israel and the fact that it will lead the Palestinian Authority, if indeed this is what will happen, this means the Palestinian Authority also cannot be a partner, in the eyes of Israel and the whole world,” she said.

Avi Dichter, a former Israeli security services chief, said he didn’t expect terrorism to rise once Hamas takes over.

“The moment they become partner to the Palestinian government, reality will become a lot more complicated for them than it was when they were a terror organization alone,” Dichter told Army Radio.

Economic constraints are also likely to curb Hamas’ extremism. With the Palestinian Authority dependent on foreign aid for its survival and on Israel for day-to-day needs such as electricity, water and the movement of people and goods, Hamas will have a hard time ignoring international calls to renounce violence.

Former President Carter told the AP the United States should increase its donations to U.N. and other aid groups earmarked for the Palestinians to make up for the cut in direct aid “so that the people can still continue to have food and shelter and health care and education.”

Carter met Friday with Abbas, who told him that the Palestinian Authority could not pay salaries at the end of the month, even with foreign aid.

If aid is cut off, “it would create an element of chaos unless the money is made up by other sources,” he said. “If the Arab countries come through and the European countries continue to help and maybe Japan, they could continue to operate.”

Hamas leaders themselves have hinted that despite their hard-line ideology, they will be pragmatic and not disrupt daily life in the territories.

A poll conducted Thursday and published in the Maariv daily said 40 percent of Israelis say Israel should negotiate with Hamas if the group renounces its determination to destroy Israel. Another 27 percent say talks should be held with no conditions, based on the “road map” peace plan.

The poll showed 29 percent of Israelis favored cutting off all contacts with the Palestinians, freezing talks and resuming targeted killings of Hamas leaders. The poll of 552 people had a 4.2 percentage-point margin of error.

A second poll in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper showed that 48 percent of those questioned by the Dahaf Research Institute said Israel should negotiate with Hamas, while 43 percent said Israel should shun a Hamas-led government. The poll of 500 people had a 4.5 percentage-point margin of error and was conducted Wednesday night, before Hamas’ victory was announced.