A frustrated U.S. secretary of state demanded Thursday action from recalcitrant Israeli and Palestinian leaders, saying it was time for them to demonstrate leadership in the crisis-hit peace talks.

But John Kerry acknowledged in Algiers that negotiators from the two sides had made "progress" in lengthy overnight talks in Jerusalem, also attended by the Americans.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry cancelled plans to travel Wednesday to Ramallah after both the Israelis and the Palestinians announced moves likely to scuttle the peace talks.

"We are no longer travelling tomorrow," a senior State Department official said, shortly after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians would seek membership of 15 U.N. agencies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday slammed a U.N. rights body for a string of resolutions condemning the Jewish state despite a wave of rights abuses elsewhere in the region.

"At the end of last week, the U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Israel five times, at a time when the slaughter in Syria is continuing, innocent people are being hung in the Middle East and human rights are being eroded," he told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday it would be clear within "days" whether the crisis-hit peace talks would be extended beyond an April 29 deadline, local media reported.

His remarks, which were reported by several Israeli news websites, come as US officials work around the clock to prevent a collapse of the negotiations over a dispute about Palestinian prisoners.

A senior Palestinian official said a release by Israel of Arab prisoners would not go ahead on Saturday as envisaged but he hoped there would be only a short delay.

"Today the prisoners will not be released... maybe in the coming days," Issa Qaraqae, the minister of prisoner affairs, told Agence France Presse.

Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday that the army would use force against anybody plotting attacks against the Jewish state, after troops killed three Palestinians in a West Bank raid.

"Over the weekend, our forces struck at a terrorist who had organized attacks on Israelis and was also planning attacks on innocent civilians," Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting.

Israel's spy agency Mossad has concluded eight Iranian Jews who had tried to emigrate to Israel in the 1990s were murdered en route, the prime minister's office said on Friday.

The announcement came as Iran marked the Persian New Year, and as Israel chided Western powers for negotiating with the Jewish state's arch-foe Tehran.

Israel launched air raids against Syrian army positions early Wednesday and issued a stark warning to Damascus just hours after a bomb on the occupied Golan Heights wounded four Israeli soldiers.

The Syrian army said one soldier had been killed and seven others wounded in strikes on its bases in the Quneitra region, which it denounced as "acts of aggression" that endangered regional stability.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has hardened his stance on Iran following developments in nuclear talks with the West and would now back a unilateral Israeli strike, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Yaalon also accused Washington of "demonstrating weakness" in the Ukraine crisis in comments published by Haaretz newspaper.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that both he and Israeli leaders must make tough political decisions and take "risks" for peace.

Meeting Obama at the White House, Abbas said Israel's release of a fourth tranche of Palestinian prisoners by March 29 would show how serious Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about extending peace talks.