Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated his commitment to a Palestinian state, after his deputy defense minister said the government would not support a two-state solution.

Speaking at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu -- who in 2009 declared his support of a two-state solution -- said he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will "try to make progress to find the opening for negotiations with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching an agreement".

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called for national reconciliation with Gaza's Hamas rulers on Thursday, after the swearing-in of a new government in the West Bank.

"I want to overcome the obstacles on the path to... establishing an independent Palestinian state," he told the first meeting of the new government headed by prime minister Rami Hamdallah.

Israel's deputy foreign minister on Wednesday accused Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of seeking "unilateral" moves to seek statehood at the expense of direct peace talks.

Abbas "is in no hurry to restart negotiations, despite the pressures on him, because he thinks that the unilateral path will get him further and that way he won't have to pay a political price," Zeev Elkin said on public radio.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will visit the Middle East on June 13-15 to discuss peace efforts with Israeli and Palestinian officials, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said on Monday.

But he said it was not clear whether Washington's top diplomat would visit Ramallah.

Palestinian fire service officials on Monday accused Israeli settlers of setting fire to about 1,000 almond and olive trees at a known troublespot in the northern West Bank.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they told Agence France Presse that settlers from Yitzhar torched the trees at the neighboring Palestinian villages of Burin and Madama.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday called on Rami Hamdallah to form a new government, and the university chief said he accepted the task as the term of Salam Fayyad formally ended.

"President Abbas has asked me to form a new government and I have accepted," Hamdallah, the president of Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, told Agence France Presse.

The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting following the 1948 foundation of the Israeli state have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv's Jaffa district.

An official at the Muslim cemetery there told Agence France Presse that the grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons.

The United States warned Israel Thursday that continued settlement activity in east Jerusalem was "counterproductive" to efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Reacting to reports Israel is planning more than 1,000 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called on both sides to take action to build confidence needed to build a lasting peace.

Israel arrested three Palestinian police officers on Wednesday after they returned to duty having served jail terms in Palestinian prisons for shooting dead a Jewish settler, a Palestinian official said.

"Israel arrested three elements of the national security who had been detained by the Palestinian Authority in Al-Jneid prison in Nablus for their unintentional killing of a settler two years ago," the Palestinian official told Agence France Presse.

Israel's Shin Bet domestic spy agency said on Tuesday it had foiled planned attacks on Israelis by two Palestinian Islamist groups in the Hebron area.

It said that, in March, Shin Bet, army and police uncovered a nine-man Hamas cell in the village of Bani Naim, south of the West Bank city, which planned to shoot dead an Israeli settler working in nearby fields.