Washington is pressing the Palestinian leadership to delay a fresh bid to seek upgraded U.N. status until after the U.S. elections, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.

"There are pressures from the United States and some Arab parties to delay the voting until after the United States presidential elections, due in November," PLO Executive Committee member Saleh Raafat told Voice of Palestine radio.

A key meeting of Non-Aligned Movement ministers which was to have taken place in the West Bank on Sunday was cancelled after Israel denied several of them entry, officials said.

The ministers were to have attended a two-day meeting of the movement's Palestine Committee in Ramallah at which they were poised to sign a declaration in support of a fresh Palestinian bid for upgraded U.N. membership.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned on Friday the "heinous" attack on a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital, which killed 21 civilians.

"We condemn the heinous crime committed against our people in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, in which dozens of unarmed civilians were killed and wounded," his office said.

Israeli soldiers shot dead one Palestinian and wounded two others early Monday at a checkpoint near East Jerusalem, Palestinian medical and security sources said.

The victim, 40-year-old Akram Dair from a village in the West Bank near Ramallah, was driving in a car with two other Palestinians when border guards opened fire at them, the sources said.

U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's endorsement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is "harmful" to U.S. interests in the Middle East, a senior Palestinian official said on Sunday.

"Romney's declarations are harmful to American interests in our region, and they harm peace, security and stability," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse.

Israeli police barred a traditional iftar meal for breaking the Ramadan fast which was to take place at an east Jerusalem hotel on grounds it had been organized by Hamas, a Palestinian activist said on Sunday.

During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began last weekend, Muslims are expected to abstain from food, drink and sex from dawn until sunset, when they break their fast with a meal known as iftar.

Israeli troops on Saturday arrested a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group at his home in the West Bank city of Nablus, his relatives said.

Relatives of Abdallah Harouf, 24, said that troops seized him at his home near the Old City during the early hours of Saturday.

More than 100 Palestinian families have returned to Gaza over the past week after fleeing spiraling violence in war-torn Syria, a Palestinian NGO said on Wednesday.

According to Hamza Abu Shanab, who heads the Palestinian Assembly for Supporting the Syrian Revolution, the families have begun crossing through the Rafah crossing from Egypt over the past week.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket toward the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday evening but it was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, the military told Agence France Presse.

On Friday two rockets slammed into open ground in Israel's south, without causing casualties or damage.

Cairo has eased the visa requirements for Gazans under 40 who want to travel to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, Palestinian officials said on Monday.

"We were officially informed by the Egyptian side about a decision to allow any Palestinian under the age of 40 to travel through Rafah with his family without a visa, starting today," said Maher Abu Sabha, director of borders within Gaza's Hamas-run government.