U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Tuesday, a Palestinian official said, in an effort to keep peace talks alive.

"The aim of the visit (to the town of Bethlehem) is to contain the huge crisis in peace talks, prompted by Israel's announcement in the last few days of new settlement tenders," the senior Palestinian official told Agence France Presse.

An Israeli raid to destroy a Gaza tunnel ignited clashes in which tank fire killed four Hamas commanders and five Israeli soldiers were wounded, both sides said Friday.

In one of the deadliest flareups in Gaza since an October 2012 conflict, warplanes carried out an air strike after Palestinian militants lobbed between one and three mortar shells into southern Israel.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki on Thursday denounced Israeli plans to build hundreds of new settler homes in east Jerusalem, threatening to pursue international legal action in response.

Israel announced on Wednesday it would build 1,500 new settler homes in the mostly Arab sector of Jerusalem, immediately after the Jewish state released 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners in line with its commitments to U.S.-backed peace talks.

Plans to build 1,500 new Israeli settler homes in east Jerusalem do not create a "positive environment" for ongoing peace negotiations with the Palestinians, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

Palestinians have reacted angrily to the plans announced just hours after Israel freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, accusing the Jewish state of trying to wreck the peace talks.

Israel on Sunday approved the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, the second batch to be freed since August under the terms of renewed U.S.-brokered peace talks.

"The release of 26 prisoners has been validated this evening," said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

The Palestinians denied Saturday that a mooted Israeli release of Palestinian prisoners is part of understandings in peace talks under which Israel would be allowed to build more settlements in exchange.

The media said this week that Israeli ministers were to meet Sunday to approve the release of a second batch of Palestinian prisoners under the terms of the renewed peace talks.

Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers sentenced a murderer to death on Thursday, the interior ministry said, just weeks after another criminal was hanged in a move that outraged human rights groups

A court in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip sentenced a man who it did not name to "death by hanging for the murder of Aliyan al-Tilbani" during an armed burglary at a biscuit factory, a statement from public prosecutor Ismail Jaber said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that talks between Israel and the Palestinians were intensifying and that all issues were on the table.

He also announced that Qatar had agreed to provide $150 million (110 million euros) in debt relief to the Palestinian Authority.

Israel's chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni was on Monday filing an appeal after ministers approved a bill aimed at curbing peace talks on the future of Jerusalem, her spokeswoman said.

The draft law, a copy of which was seen by Agence France Presse, seeks to prevent any negotiations on the future of the Holy City without first obtaining a two-thirds majority of 80 of the 120 members of the Israeli parliament.

Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said they received phone calls on Friday from the Israeli army accusing the Islamist movement of failing to provide for civilians.

"To the residents of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army warns you against obeying the orders of the terrorist Hamas or having any contact with it," the recipient of one such pre-recorded message quoted it to Agence France Presse as saying.