Gaza Residents Ordered to Register Guns : Mideast: Palestinian edict extends crackdown on militants. Weapons not accounted for will be confiscated.

The Palestinian Authority called Wednesday for gun owners in the Gaza Strip to register their weapons within a month--a call defied by Islamic opponents--and Palestinian police arrested more suspects in a widening crackdown on militants.

A Palestinian official said 300 supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been arrested since Sunday. The arrests were authorized by Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the authority, after two Islamic militants carried out separate suicide bombing attacks over the weekend against Israelis near Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Palestinian reporters in Gaza described the situation Wednesday as increasingly tense, although both the militants and the Palestinian Authority denied that the campaign of arrests could spark civil war. The authority sponsored a seminar that attracted leaders of Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO, and of Hamas to discuss “common ground,” Voice of Palestine Radio reported.

Palestinians from the West Bank and abroad joined in mediation efforts, urging both sides to back away from confrontation and reach a political understanding.

Arafat has authorized mass arrests of militants after attacks against Israelis before, but this time he has also activated military courts to try some of those arrested.

Palestinian officials said they are determined to pursue their crackdown. Justice Minister Freih abu Medeen said that all gun owners in Gaza will be given until May 11 to register their weapons or face confiscation.

“We are in a corner, and we have to fight and to struggle for the interest of our people and protect our national security,” Medeen said in Gaza.

Police said no weapons had been turned in by late Wednesday, and a spokesman for Hamas said its fighters will not surrender their arms as long as Israeli soldiers remain in Gaza guarding Jewish settlements.

Israel continued to closely monitor the growing confrontation between Arafat’s forces and the militants. The Israeli Parliament came back from its spring recess to hold a raucous daylong debate on the situation. Leaders of right-wing parties demanded that the government abandon its peace talks with the Palestinians and intervene in Gaza to eliminate the militias of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But a visibly angry Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin vowed to continue peace negotiations with the Palestinians and rejected assertions that the peace treaty signed with the PLO in September, 1993, gave rise to the suicide attacks that have claimed 65 Israeli lives since October.

Israeli security officials warned that Hamas or Islamic Jihad may try to carry out an attack in Israel during the weeklong Jewish holiday of Passover that begins Friday at sundown.

Police Minister Moshe Shahal told reporters Wednesday that, over the weekend, Israel will bar all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from entering Israel, beginning tonight.

Palestinian officials say that the ban Israel imposed Jan. 22 after a suicide bombing attack killed 21 Israelis at a bus stop in northern Israel has devastated the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has gradually eased the ban, but thousands of residents of the territories still are not allowed to return to their jobs in Israel.

Israelis on Wednesday were still dealing with the aftermath of Sunday’s suicide bombing attacks, which killed seven Israelis and an American university student.

Two Israeli transplant patients who received organs from Alisa Flatow, the 20-year-old American student who was killed in the attack near the Kfar Darom settlement, died Wednesday.

A 42-year-old diabetic, Serena Shmuelevitz, received Flatow’s pancreas and kidney Tuesday. She died of a heart attack Wednesday, hospital officials said. Moshe Yamin, 65, who received one of her lungs, died after his body rejected the organ, a spokesman for Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer reported.

Four other patients who received other organs from the Brandeis University student reportedly were doing well.

In West Orange, N.J., hundreds of relatives, friends and others attended funeral services for Flatow. The coffin carrying her remains arrived home Wednesday morning from Israel.

In Washington, the State Department said an FBI team had left for the Gaza Strip to help investigate her slaying.