After a daylong debate, the parliament voted confidence in the new Cabinet by a vote of 51 to 18 with three abstentions .
As Abbas was calling for an end to violence, three Palestinian militants were killed in Israeli military operations, including one in a missile strike.
Assuring parliamentary support for the new Cabinet, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) urged members to vote in favor. "In this very sensitive and dangerous period the whole region is facing, I call your respected council to give confidence to the new Cabinet that will be presented by my brother," Arafat said, referring to Abbas, with whom he had wrangled for weeks over the Cabinet's makeup.
Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, told legislators that there was no military solution to the Palestinians' conflict with Israel and rejected terrorism, pledging to control militant groups and confiscate illegal weapons.
In a gesture to Israel, which was marking its annual remembrance day for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II, Abbas said, "We do not ignore the sufferings of the Jews throughout history," adding that Israel must not ignore the suffering of the Palestinians. Abbas has been accused of minimizing the Holocaust in his doctoral dissertation.
But he also staked out tough political positions — rejecting Israel's requests for changes in the expected "road map" to peace, and saying Israel would eventually have to withdraw from all occupied territory.
Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin said Israel would take a wait-and-see attitude toward Abbas' new government.
"Many statements have been made in the past both by Abu Mazen, and by other Palestinian leaders," he said. "I think after two-and-a-half years of a terrorist war ... we are a little wary about those statements."
If Abbas succeeds in bringing a halt to terrorism "then clearly they will find Israel as a willing partner on the road to renew the peace process," Gissin said.
Abbas said he opposed terrorism "by any party and in all its forms ... because we are convinced that such methods do not lend support to a just cause like ours, but rather destroy it," he said.
But a spokesman for the militant group Hamas said that the organization had no intention of stopping its attacks.
In violence Tuesday, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired four missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), killing Nidal Salama, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small radical PLO faction, and a bystander.
In the West Bank, troops shot dead two members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah (news - web sites) movement.
Israel has killed scores of wanted militants in targeted attacks, including missile strikes, in the past 31 months of fighting, a practice that has drawn international condemnation. As part of the road map, both sides would be required to halt all violence.
Arafat accused Israel of trying to sabotage the vote on the Cabinet by launching the missile strike. "Regretfully, this escalation is aimed at challenging the Palestinian legislative council," he told reporters at his West Bank headquarters.
The new prime minister needs the support of 43 legislators in the 85-member parliament in Tuesday's vote. The legislature, elected in 1996, initially had 88 members, but two have died and one has resigned.
Arafat and Abbas convened 60 legislators of the ruling Fatah party to persuade them to support the new Cabinet. In a stormy meeting that lasted until early Tuesday, many Fatah lawmakers demanded that each minister be approved individually — a demand Abbas rejected, apparently fearing that several members of his new team would be voted down.
In the end, 40 of those present indicated their support for the entire Cabinet. Fatah lawmaker Hatem Abdel Qader said he expected the Cabinet would be approved, "despite many members' reservations."
U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) refuses to deal with Arafat, whom he considers tainted by terrorism, and he has been pushing for an alternate Palestinian leadership.
Critics of the proposed Abbas government say he missed an opportunity for a sweeping overhaul, and several of his appointees are tainted by corruption.
Parliamentary approval of the Cabinet would clear the way for the road map to be put into play. The three-stage plan, drafted by the United States, the United Nations (news - web sites), Russia and the European Union (news - web sites), envisions full Palestinian statehood within three years, and a provisional state in temporary borders as early as this year.
Bush has promised to formally unveil the plan once Abbas' Cabinet is confirmed.
Israel has said it wants changes to the road map, but Abbas said it must be adopted in its current form.
"Israel is attempting to alter the road map as we know it by entering into complicated negotiations and imposing its own interpretation," Abbas said in his speech Tuesday. "We will not negotiate the road map. The road map must be implemented."
On Monday, Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said Israel would walk away from the peace plan if Palestinian shooting and bombing attacks continue.
Since fighting began in September 2000, 760 people have been killed on the Israeli side, most in such attacks, and 2,281 on the Palestinian side, most by Israeli troops.
But the Hamas spokesman, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said Tuesday that the militant group "would never drop its weapons and will not allow anyone to disarm it."
"Hamas will use its weapons against the occupation only and Hamas will fight this occupation until the full liberation," Rantisi said.
Hisham Saleh, 35, a coffee shop owner in Gaza City who was once jailed in Israel for being a member of Fatah, watched the Abbas and Arafat speeches on television with several customers.
"I hope that Abu Mazen can fulfill part of his promises," Saleh said. "People are looking at him as the light at the end of a long, dark night."
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