Palestinian cabinet minister Mr Nabil Shaath today ruled out a resumption of negotiations with Israel unless there was a halt to all settlement building on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
"The world is starting to realise that a freeze on settlement construction in occupied lands is necessary to reduce the violence and restart stalled peace talks," he told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli armoured bulldozers destroyed houses on the outskirts of a Palestinian town in what Palestinians said was the latest in a series of Israeli military incursions.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Mr Saeb Erekat left for New York for talks with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the hardships endured by Palestinians as a result of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the West Bank. Israel says limits on travel are needed to prevent attacks by Palestinian militants.
In Washington, a Palestinian official said details were being worked out for a meeting on Monday or Tuesday US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and Palestinian negotiator Mr Mahmoud Abbas, due in the United States for a medical check-up.
The purpose of the meeting is definitely to try to restart the peace process and get out of the situation we are in now, Mr Hassan Abdel Rahman, the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Washington representative said. .
The latest Israeli incursion in the Gaza Strip the into territory transferred to Palestinian control under interim peace deals occurred in Rafah, a town near the Egyptian border, a Palestinian security spokesman said today.
The Israeli army declined immediate comment, but it has said after past incursions that it was trying to uproot Palestinian gunmen.
Earlier in the day, the army said Palestinians had thrown hand grenades at its troops patrolling the Egyptian frontier and that the soldiers returned fire.
Last night, an Israeli tank fired on the Gaza refugee camp of al-Maghazi, killing one Palestinian man and wounding 10. The army said it was responding to fire from a Palestinian police post at the camp.
The death raised to at least 413 the number of Palestinians killed since the uprising began last September in the vacuum of deadlocked peace talks. Seventy-nine Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have also been killed.
The violence followed the killing of two Palestinians yesterday in an Israeli helicopter missile strike in the West Bank. Palestinians said the attack was part of a string of assassinations of security officials and activists.