Israel's new unity government could help move forward the stalled peace process, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a letter to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday.

The letter, which answers an earlier missive from Abbas about the stalled peace process, was delivered on Saturday, but so far, no details of its content have been made public.

A letter from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the stalled peace process doesn't address key issues hindering talks, the Palestine Liberation Organization said on Sunday.

Speaking after a meeting of the PLO's executive committee, secretary general Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Israeli premier's message contained no answers to the questions posed in a letter by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas last month.

Hamas foreign minister Mohammed Awad was in Tehran on Saturday for meetings with senior officials including Iran's top diplomat and a security chief, Iranian media reported.

During his visit, which had been unannounced, Awad met with Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and Saeed Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the reports said.

Israeli and Egyptian officials are making progress in attempts to end a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners, some of them close to death, Gaza's Hamas prime minister said on Saturday.

"There was progress in talks between Egypt and Israel," Ismail Hanieh said in a statement. "This is an important development concerning the demands of the prisoners."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday urged the United Nations to address the plight of some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who are on a mass hunger strike in Israeli prisons that has left several detainees close to death.

Abbas raised the fate of the prisoners during discussions with the U.N.'s Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry, a statement from the U.N. official's office said.

Israel's prison service has offered to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in a bid to end a mass hunger strike that has left several detainees close to death, sources told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Just under 1,600 Palestinian prisoners are currently refusing food in a wide-ranging protest against solitary confinement, detention without charge and restrictions on family visits, education and various privileges.

Several dozen Palestinians on Wednesday blocked staff from entering U.N. offices in Ramallah to demand that U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon take action over hunger striking prisoners.

The demonstrators, who blocked U.N. employees from entering the building, waved banners reading: "UNjust" and "UNfair."

Veteran Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat has undergone an operation after suffering a heart attack on Tuesday, his wife and medical sources told Agence France Presse.

The 57-year-old "woke at dawn with chest pains and decided to go to the Palestine medical complex in Ramallah where he underwent medical tests," said his wife, Naama Erakat, referring to the city's main hospital.

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday ordered two Palestinians to leave their properties in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, ruling that the properties were owned by Jews, their lawyer told Agence France Presse.

Lawyer Mohammed Dahleh said the court had rejected his clients' appeals, and ruled that Ghazi Zalum's house and Ismail Wazwaz's shop had been owned by Jews in the period before the establishment of Israel in 1948, with the properties later falling into Jordan's hands.

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by two Palestinian prisoners who have been on hunger strike for 69 days in protest at being held without charge, their lawyer told Agence France Presse.

"The Supreme Court refused both appeals," Jamil Khatib said of the move by Bilal Diab, 27, and Thaer Halahla, 34, who had appealed to Israel's highest court on Thursday to end the administrative detention orders under which they are being held.