A visit set for Wednesday by a senior Fatah official to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip to put the finishing touches on a Palestinian unity government has been postponed indefinitely, a Palestinian official said.

Last month, Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, dominated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, signed a reconciliation deal aimed at ending years of political division.

Aid convoys from Algeria and Jordan crossed Sunday from Egypt into Israeli-blockaded Gaza  with $2.5 million (1.8 million euros) worth of supplies, the Palestinian territory's Hamas government said.

Alaa el-Batta, a government official, told a news conference at the Rafah border crossing that a 14-member Algerian delegation brought medicines and medical equipment worth $2 million for the opening of an Algerian-sponsored hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

A new Palestinian government will need the approval of the Hamas-dominated parliament, the Islamist movement's prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said Wednesday.

Hamas signed a reconciliation deal last month with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is dominated by its bitter rival Fatah, in a surprise move that aims to overcome a years-long intra-Palestinian split.

Authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday executed two Palestinians for allegedly collaborating with Israel, the territory's interior ministry said.

"Two collaborators with the Israeli occupation, condemned to death for having given information leading to the martyrdom of two citizens, have been executed," a spokesman told Agence France Presse.

Hamas will never recognize Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement's deputy leader. 

Speaking late on Saturday, Moussa Abu Marzouq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank, would never agree to recognize Israel. 

A key Palestine Liberation Organisation body was set to hold Saturday talks after Israel pulled out of U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations in response to a Palestinian reconciliation deal with Hamas.

The meeting of the PLO's Central Council at its West Bank headquarters in Ramallah was to start at 0800 GMT with a brief speech by president Mahmud Abbas, and will continue on Sunday, when the Palestinian leader is scheduled to deliver a major address.

Israel's security cabinet was to meet on Thursday morning to weigh its response to a unity deal struck between the Palestinian leadership and the Hamas rulers of Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to Wednesday's agreement between the rival factions accusing Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of choosing "Hamas, not peace".

A senior Cairo-based Hamas official crossed Monday from Egypt into the Gaza Strip ahead of a new attempt to reconcile the militant Islamist movement and its Palestine Liberation Organisation rivals.

Mussa Abu Marzuq, head of external affairs in the movement's political office, was seen entering the Hamas-ruled coastal strip through the Rafah frontier crossing.

An explosion in the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinians and wounded five on Wednesday, a medical official said, but the reason for the blast was unclear.

The three killed were already dead on their arrival at hospital, and all were in their 20s, Hamas' health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told Agence France Presse.

A Palestinian woman died after inhaling tear gas used by Israeli troops near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a medical official said Tuesday, but the military denied any involvement.

The army "fired tear gas" at stone-throwing Palestinians late Monday near the home of the woman, who was "suffering from health problems," the medical official told AFP.