Vandals left anti-Muslim graffiti on a mosque in northern Israel, police said on Tuesday, the latest in a string of racist and religious attacks in the region.

"Unidentified people drew a Star of David and wrote 'close the mosques and open yeshivas' (Jewish seminaries) on the outer wall" of the mosque in Fureidis, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Israel and the Palestinians were back to square one in the peace process on Friday after the Jewish state torpedoed U.S.-sponsored talks in response to a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the tone, telling the BBC that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas could "have peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas (but) he can't have both".

The European Union welcomed Thursday the unity accord between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas but said the priority remains peace talks with Israel.

"The EU's top priority is that the current talks continue beyond April 29," said a spokesman for EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton, referring to the deadline for a U.S.-led effort to broker a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal.

This week's Palestinian reconciliation deal faces a swift reality check, with President Mahmoud Abbas the focus of both Israeli fury and U.S. concern and Hamas seeking to salvage relations with Egypt.

"Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) had no option but to reconcile," Naji Sharab, a political science professor at Gaza's al-Azhar University, told Agence France Presse.

Israel said on Thursday it was halting negotiations with the Palestinians following their unity deal with the Hamas rulers of Gaza, as faltering U.S.-backed peace talks approached their deadline.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the agreement between the rival factions as a move that "kills peace," but senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat blamed the demise of the process on Israeli settlement activity.

Rival Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip forged a new reconciliation agreement on Wednesday, angering Israel at a time when peace talks are at a standstill.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for choosing "Hamas, not peace", and a Netanyahu aide said he had called off a peace meeting with the Palestinians scheduled for Wednesday evening.

Rival Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip agreed Wednesday to form a unity government within five weeks as peace talks with Israel face collapse.

It is not the first time that the rival sides have announced a deal to end seven years of separate Palestinians administrations in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinians met Tuesday to relaunch efforts to reconcile their rival leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as US-brokered peace talks with Israel teetered on the edge of collapse.

A week before a nine-month target originally set for an Israeli-Palestinian deal, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation arrived in Gaza City to try to revive long-stagnant unity efforts.

The Palestinians have relaunched efforts to reconcile their rival leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as U.S.-brokered peace talks with Israel teeter on the edge of collapse.

A week before a nine-month target originally set for an Israeli-Palestinian deal, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation was expected in Gaza City on Tuesday to try to revive long-stagnant unity efforts.

The Palestinians on Tuesday played down a threat to dismantle the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which is Israel's interlocutor, if U.S.-sponsored peace talks remain deadlocked.

"No Palestinian is speaking of an initiative to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA)," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse.