Britain will not deal with a Palestinian government containing Hamas members unless the militant group renounces violence, Tony Blair said today.

Speaking on the last day of campaigning before the Palestinian parliamentary elections on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said that Hamas, which is expected to do well in its first ever elections, must abandon violence to come to the negotiating table.

"It is very difficult for us to be in the position of negotiating or talking to Hamas unless there’s a very clear renunciation of terrorism," said Mr Blair at his monthly press conference today.

The latest polls show that Hamas and Fatah, currently the only party in the Palestinian Assembly, with little between them going into elections on Wednesday.

Although Hamas has observed a ceasefire with Israel since last February, the group still officially calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and is designated a terrorist organisation by the US.

"It is very difficult... We don’t know what the election results will be," Mr Blair said today. "But in the end all organisations have to choose whether they want a path of violence or a path of politics and there’s no way they will get anywhere with a path of violence."

In a frantic last day of speeches and rallies in the Palestinian territories, Hamas refused to make its intentions clear. On posters in the West Bank city of Hebron, it promised: "With one hand we will build, with the other we will fight." In Ramallah, Hamas campaign slogans asked: "Israel and America said no to Hamas. What do you say?"

The exiled leader of the group, Khaled Mashaal, ruled out talks with Israel. "We don’t have to make concessions to satisfy Israel," he said in a television interview today. "Israel respects us when we are strong."

But Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas candidate in Gaza, said that talks might be possible, if conducted through a third party. "Negotiation is not a taboo," he said. "If there is something from the enemy side to be offered, like stopping aggression, releasing our prisoners, we could find a way."

The popularity of Hamas, which has campaigned as united, corruption-free alternative to the splintered and unruly Fatah party of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has alarmed the US and Israel, which has called for the group to be shunned by the international community if it wins a measure of control over the Palestinian Authority.

Today the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, said that the first Palestinian parliamentary elections since 1996 were supposed to promote peaceful rather than militant organisations.

"The elections were meant to give power and strength to dismantle the (militant) organisations and not create a situation where those organisations sit in the parliament and then become part of the executive authority," she said.

As night fell in the Palestinian territories, Fatah staged a final, emotional rally to persuade undecided voters to cast their ballot in memory of Yassir Arafat, the former Palestinian president and founder of the movement.

Under a huge poster of Arafat and smaller images of Fatah militants, 2,000 supporters gathered to pledge their allegiance: "To the blood of the martyrs, to the wounds of the wounded, to the suffering of the prisoners".

And according to some last-minute polls, the late campaigning and uncertainty over the extremism of Hamas seemed to be attracting wavering voters back to Fatah. The influence was felt among the 58,000 members of the Palestinian security forces who voted today so they would be free to control events on election day.

"With Fatah, at least we know what we are getting," said Hisham Assam, a 39-year-old police officer, who cast his vote today. "With Hamas, we are heading into the unknown."

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