GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gunmen briefly abducted a senior Palestinian security officer yesterday in the latest sign of growing anarchy in the Gaza Strip, and supporters of Yasser Arafat staged a mass rally calling for action against vigilantes.

In a daylight ambush in Gaza City, masked men stopped the jeep of Mohammed Al-Batrawi, financial comptroller of the security forces in Gaza, bundled him into another car and took him to the nearby Nusseirat refugee camp.

They held him for three hours in a house ringed with explosives, threatening to detonate the charges if police approached and to shoot journalists if they did not leave the scene.

Palestinian officials said Mr. Batrawi was eventually freed, with no concessions made for his release. The kidnappers had sought to pressure Mr. Batrawi to arrange jobs in the security services for friends and relatives, the officials said.

In recent months, Gaza has been gripped by growing lawlessness, with vigilantes abducting officials and taking over government buildings to settle personal scores or to demand jobs or housing. With Mr. Arafat’s Palestinian Authority increasingly weakened by four years of fighting with Israel, rival militias are jostling for power ahead of the expected Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Also yesterday, the Israeli military said that two Palestinian women wanted for allegedly planning to carry out a twin suicide bombing in Tel Aviv had surrendered to troops in the West Bank.

The women, Adilah and Lina Jawabre, both 21 and university students, turned themselves in after relatives told them the army was looking for them.

Family members said both women – distant relatives and childhood friends – denied involvement in planning an attack and that they surrendered because they have nothing to hide. However, military officials said the women confessed they planned to carry out an attack.