PLO, Hamas Reach Temporary Truce in Gaza : Mideast: Goal is to avert violence by militants during memorial. Arafat supporters stage second rally to show allegiance.

Palestinian mediators announced late Wednesday that they achieved a temporary truce between Yasser Arafat’s fledgling self-rule authority and Islamic opponents in the Gaza Strip.

The agreement, reached nearly one week after Palestinian police opened fire on militant Islamic protesters, called for both sides to refrain from further violence until a permanent understanding can be reached. At least 13 people were killed and about 130 were wounded in the clashes.

The agreement is aimed at ensuring peace and order during a memorial gathering Friday for a Hamas guerrilla leader killed last year by undercover Israeli soldiers.

Sayed abu Musameh, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said the rally will be a display of support for Hamas, but said those at the rally will abide by the law.

Arafat on Wednesday staged his second show of strength since last Friday’s bloody showdown with Islamic militants, assembling thousands of supporters--some armed and firing weapons in the air--to tout his preeminence as Palestinian leader.

Buses poured into this drowsy market town, disgorging loyalists from Arafat’s Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the West Bank, about 3,000 demonstrators packed Jericho’s rocky soccer field in a hard, cold rain, chanting promises to sacrifice “blood and soul” for their leader and his embattled self-rule government.

On Monday, Arafat brought out 10,000 Fatah followers for a rally in Gaza City.

Violence linked to opposition to the peace accord between Israel and the PLO continued.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian guerrilla after he and another gunman ambushed the soldiers, witnesses and Israeli security sources said. They said the two guerrillas, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, opened fire on an Israeli paramilitary border police patrol in the center of the town of Janin. The troops shot back, killing one. The other guerrilla fled, they said.

On Tuesday, gunmen in a Gaza orange grove wounded Capt. Jamal abu Toma in the leg, in the first ambush of a Palestinian police officer. No one claimed responsibility, but fundamentalists were widely assumed to have staged the attack.

A new survey said two-thirds of the Palestinians support a dialogue between the PLO and the Islamic factions. The survey of 1,076 Palestinians was taken Nov. 17-19, with most of the interviews conducted before the Gaza clashes.

It was carried out by the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, based in Nablus in the West Bank, and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will receive the Spanish Prince of Asturias peace prize today in Madrid, before meeting to discuss peace in Gaza.