Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a deal with King Abdullah II on Sunday confirming Jordan's historic role as custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem, the palace said.

Outlining their coordination, the two sides stressed their "common goal to defending" Jerusalem and its sacred sites against attempts to Judaise the Holy City, particularly the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Israel and Turkey's recent rapprochement is a vital factor in developing peace and stability in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.

U.S. President Barack Obama brokered the tentative reconciliation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday during his visit to Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Israeli settlements "endanger" peace efforts, at a meeting in the Jordanian capital to discuss a "new" peace push, the Palestinian ambassador said.

"Kerry and Abbas discussed possible steps to revive a new political process for peace," Palestinian ambassador in Amman Attallah Kheiry told Agence France Presse.

Two rockets fired by militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday hit southern Israel as U.S. President Barack Obama was visiting the Jewish state, police said.

"One exploded in the back yard of a house in Sderot, causing damage, and the second landed in a field," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse, referring to a town very close to the Gaza border, which was visited by Obama on a previous trip in 2008 when he was a senator.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday he hoped to establish peace talks with Israel later this year while admitting that the chances for progress were slim.

Abbas said during a visit to Moscow he hoped "that later this year, we will see the start of substantive negotiations with Israel".

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were united in grief on Thursday over the death of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, whose untiring support for their cause saw him make blistering attacks on Israel.

The 58-year-old Venezuelan president, who died on Tuesday after a nearly two-year struggle with cancer, was hugely popular with the Palestinians for his outspoken support for their plight.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has banned settler housing tenders being issued for the West Bank and east Jerusalem when U.S. President Barack Obama visits this month, a daily said Friday.

Netanyahu had told officials the "suspension" did not amount to a freeze in settlement construction, and that it would only be in place up until the end of Obama's trip to avoid "embarrassing" leaders, Maariv newspaper reported.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that Israel was deliberately seeking to stoke unrest in the occupied West Bank but that Palestinians would not be provoked.

"The Israelis want chaos and we know it but we won't let them," Abbas said in comments at his West Bank headquarters, seemingly in response to an Israeli demand on Sunday that he calm a wave of protest in the territory.

Militants of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, vowed Monday to avenge the death of a prisoner they say was tortured in an Israeli jail.

"This horrific crime will not go unpunished and we promise the Zionist occupation that we will respond to this crime," said a statement distributed to crowds at the funeral of Arafat Jaradat, while armed and masked members of the militant group watched from rooftops, Agence France Presse journalists at the scene reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Barack Obama could hold a three-way summit during the U.S. president's upcoming visit, Israel's deputy foreign minister said on Saturday.

"During the visit of President Obama, a three-way summit could take place or even four-way with King Abdullah II of Jordan," Danny Ayalon said, quoted by Israeli army radio.