The Palestinians on Tuesday played down a threat to dismantle the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which is Israel's interlocutor, if U.S.-sponsored peace talks remain deadlocked.

"No Palestinian is speaking of an initiative to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA)," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse.

A meeting between Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed, an official said, after a fatal shooting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on Palestinian leaders.

But Palestinians said the postponement came at the behest of the Americans, and to give time for U.S. envoy Martin Indyk to arrive in the region to attend.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday pinned blame on the Palestinian leadership after a deadly attack on an Israeli police officer near the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

"This assassination is the result of the incitement to hatred by Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who continue to peddle hate-filled material against Israel," Netanyahu charged.

A gunman shot three people dead Sunday at a Jewish community center and a retirement community in Kansas, drawing widespread condemnation and consternation on the eve of Passover.

The 70-year-old white male suspect, who is in custody, was not local and did not know the victims, Overland Park Police Department Chief John Douglass told reporters.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met on Sunday in a fresh bid to save their teetering U.S.-brokered peace talks, a Palestinian official said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat was meeting in Jerusalem with his Israeli opposite number, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy Yitzhak Molcho, he told Agence France Presse.

Israeli police said Thursday they arrested five people suspected of demolishing a military base in an extremist settlement in the West Bank, the latest attack against security forces by hardliners.

The suspects, all males aged 16-29, were arrested for involvement in Tuesday's vandalism in the northern West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to meet again on Monday in a new effort to salvage the teetering U.S.-brokered peace talks, U.S. and Palestinian officials said.

The meeting came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry scrambled to rescue negotiations he kick-started in July, and a week after a fresh impasse saw both sides renege on commitments they made nine months ago.

Israel and the Palestinians held last-ditch talks with a U.S. envoy Sunday on salvaging their teetering peace talks, after the Jewish state threatened to take retaliatory measures.

Warning that the peace process was on the edge of collapse, an Israeli official close to the talks said that even U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, its tireless sponsor, was cooling off.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet jointly Sunday with U.S. envoy Martin Indyk, as attempts continue to prevent the collapse of peace negotiations, officials close to the talks said.

The first three-way meeting since Wednesday comes as Washington reviews its push for a peace deal after a spiral of tit-for-tat moves by Israel and the Palestinians took hard-won negotiations close to collapse.

Israel is considering retaliatory measures against the Palestinians in response to their renewed drive for international recognition of their promised state, Israeli media reported on Friday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon have asked the head of the Israeli military administration in the occupied West Bank, General Yoav Mordechai, to draw up a range of options, the Haaretz newspaper reported.