Israel holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the safety of three teenagers who were kidnapped in the West Bank by a "terror organization", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

"Our young people have been kidnapped by a terror organization... there is no doubt about that," Netanyahu told reporters in Tel Aviv as a massive manhunt for the three youngsters entered its third night.

Three Israeli teenagers, one of them also a U.S. citizen, have been kidnapped in the occupied West Bank, presumably by Palestinians, the army said on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the Palestinian Authority responsible for their well-being, but Palestinians baulked at the idea they were to blame for the disappearance inside an Israeli-controlled area of the West Bank.

A Palestinian unity deal with the Islamist Hamas movement must be supported, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso told an Israeli security conference on Sunday.

His remarks came just days after a Palestinian unity government, comprised of political independents but backed by Hamas, was sworn in -- a move welcomed by the international community but rejected by Israel as a major stumbling block to peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to convince Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to be a candidate in the race for president, media said on Friday.

Israeli media began reporting Netanyahu's last-minute attempt on Tuesday, when candidates had to present 10 MPs' signatures to be eligible for the position.

Police closed the flashpoint Al-Aqsa compound to visitors Wednesday as Israel marked Jerusalem Day and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to never allow the city to be divided.

The annual celebration recalls the Israeli army's seizure of the walled Old City in what was then Jordanian-held east Jerusalem on the third day of the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Friday that world powers must deny Iran any possibility of developing a nuclear weapon as the search for a deal intensifies.

"I think that, while the talks with Iran are going on, there is one thing that must guide the international community and that is not to let the ayatollahs win," Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying at the beginning of their meeting in Jerusalem.

Iran is sharing nuclear technology with North Korea, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published Wednesday, as Tehran and world powers hold talks aimed at ending a decade-old standoff.

Netanyahu, who is in Japan this week for talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, said Iran "would share whatever technology it acquired with North Korea," the Mainichi Shimbun reported in a front-page piece.

The prime ministers of Japan and Israel compared notes Monday about living near countries with suspected illicit nuclear weapons programs.

Benjamin Netanyahu, on the second day of a five-day trip to Japan, said the international community should keep up pressure on Iran, which the West suspects of trying to develop atomic bombs.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Tokyo later Sunday for a summit with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at which he is expected to raise the Iranian nuclear talks and economic cooperation.

Netanyahu is likely to press Japan to side with Israel over nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers when he meets Abe Monday afternoon, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice assured Israel at high-level bilateral talks on Thursday that Washington remained determined to stop Iran developing nuclear arms, the White House said.

"The U.S. delegation reaffirmed our commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," said a White House statement released after talks in Jerusalem between Rice, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials from both sides.