Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday announced the start of talks on forming a national unity government, the official WAFA news agency said.

The announcement came on the last day of the statutory two-week period after the April 13 resignation of prime minister Salam Fayyad from the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank.

European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah expressed serious concerns on Friday about the demolition this week of 22 structures in eight places across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The destruction displaced 28 people, including 18 children, and affected 120 other people including 57 children, a statement from EU missions in Ramallah and Jerusalem said of the actions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Jordan on Tuesday said Israel has agreed to allow a U.N. mission to "investigate and assess" heritage conservation in Jerusalem's Old City for the first time since 2004.

"Jordan and Palestine, supported by Arab states, succeeded in pressuring Israel, for the first time since 2004, to accept and facilitate a UNESCO experts' mission to investigate and assess the status of heritage and conservation of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls," a palace statement said.

Israeli police paraded a cuffed Palestinian teenager to protesters in what a human rights group charged Saturday was abuse of a "human shield" but an Israeli spokesman said was a move to calm violence.

Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI) posted a 76-second video clip on YouTube showing helmeted border policemen removing a young Palestinian it identified as "Muhammad R,17," from their armored jeep and forcing him to stand beside them, cuffed hands raised above his head.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Istanbul on Sunday, the State Department said, as a U.S.-led peace push focusing on the Palestinian economy steps up.

Kerry and Abbas, who have met several times recently, will "continue the conversation that they've been having for several weeks now about how to get both sides back to the table," a State Department official said.

Leaders of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas met in Qatar on Friday amid renewed impetus for a unity government after the resignation of prime minister Salam Fayyad, a Palestinian official told Agence France Presse.

Newly re-elected Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal chaired the meeting in his base in exile in Qatar, which was also attended by Hamas leaders from Gaza including its prime minister Ismail Haniya.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday pardoned a Palestinian prisoner who had carried out two long-term hunger strikes, citing concerns over his health, a statement from his office said.

"Peres accepted the recommendation of the Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, in coordination with the security services, and signed the release of Mohammed Kamal al-Taj," the statement said.

Caretaker prime minister Salam Fayyad, in his first public comments since he resigned, called on Wednesday for a general election to rebuild the Palestinian political system.

The Palestinians "need ... a general election, as the only way to rebuild our political system and achieve our national goals," he said in his weekly radio address as premier.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday announced plans to visit Gaza at the end of May, possibly after a key trip to Washington which brokered a rapprochement between Turkey and Israel last month.

"God willing, we will be in Gaza at the end of May. We will embrace one another there," Erdogan said through a video link with a Turkish aid center in the tiny Palestinian territory, media reported.

The Palestinian Authority on Sunday summoned Canada's envoy to convey "strong dissatisfaction" over Foreign Minister John Baird's visit last week to annexed east Jerusalem.

The Palestinian foreign ministry summoned Katherine Verrier-Frechette "to express its strong dissatisfaction over the meeting between Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in east Jerusalem," a statement read.