Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird's meeting with an Israeli minister in annexed Arab East Jerusalem this week was a "slap in the face" to Palestinians, a Palestinian official said Friday.

Baird met Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, lead peace negotiator in Israel's cabinet, at her office in east Jerusalem on Tuesday, in a move normally avoided by visiting diplomats because it could be seen as legitimizing Israel's controversial annexation.

Israel's attorney general has backed plans to cut funding to a Jewish seminary in an extremist settlement over violence by its students towards Palestinians and Israeli troops, court documents showed.

The decision by Yehuda Weinstein to back education ministry plans to halt the cash flow to the seminary in the hardline Yitzhar settlement was spelled out in a statement to the High Court on Wednesday.

Human rights violations by medics working for Israel's prison service are endangering the lives of both Israeli and Palestinian inmates, especially hunger strikers, a watchdog said on Thursday.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel strongly urged the transfer of responsibility for prisoners' health from the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) to the health ministry in order to ensure detainees' health was put ahead of "security considerations".

The United States on Thursday shot down speculation Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad is poised to offer his resignation to president Mahmoud Abbas after a dispute between the two.

Rumours the U.S.-educated economist would either resign or be told to step down by Abbas have been rife in recent weeks following the high-profile dispute between the pair over the government's hiring and firing policy.

Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas claimed success on Thursday in their month-long campaign to encourage people accused of collaborating with Israel to turn themselves in.

"The campaign to combat espionage achieved a number of goals, and from this evening the deadline for Israeli collaborators to turn themselves in has ended," said interior ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan.

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad is to present his resignation to president Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, a senior Palestinian official said.

Abbas and Fayyad are known to have been at odds over a raft of issues but their relationship took a nose dive last month when Fayyad accepted his finance minister's resignation only for it to be rejected by Abbas.

An Israeli court on Tuesday sentenced an extreme rightwing U.S.-born Jewish settler to two life terms in prison for the murder of two Palestinians in 1997.

Jack Teitel, 40, was found guilty in January of murdering a bus driver and a shepherd, as well as of two separate attempted murders, illegal possession of weapons and incitement to violence.

Palestinian journalists have demanded that authorities restrict the movement of Israeli reporters in the West Bank, a local media worker said Tuesday.

A media union urged president Mahmoud Abbas in a letter to block Israeli reporters from accessing Palestinian-controlled West Bank territory, in response to Israel's own restrictions on the movement of Palestinian reporters.

Resuming frozen negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be done 'right' rather than being rushed, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday after three days of talks with the region's leaders.

"Each of the leaders that I met with assured me that they will put their best effort into trying to move forward," he said, adding: "Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly."

A rocket fired from Gaza crashed into southern Israel on Sunday, without causing casualties or damage, shortly after the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on a peace bid, police said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse the rocket landed in an uninhabited sector of the Negev desert, as Kerry started a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.