A senior Israeli cabinet minister on Monday said that a planned meeting with Palestinian negotiators after a 16-month pause was a positive step but should not be seen as renewal of negotiations.

"This is a positive development," Intelligence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor told Israeli public radio.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministerial colleagues on Sunday that he planned to strengthen barriers along his country's border with Jordan, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The English-language daily's website said Netanyahu told ministers from his Likud party that he feared illegal migrants who currently enter Israel from Egypt would head to the less-fortified Jordanian border once the Jewish state completes a fence along its southern border.

Palestinian and Israeli negotiators will meet for the first time in more than a year in Jordan on Tuesday to discuss stalled peace talks, the Jordanian foreign ministry said on Sunday.

"Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Tuesday will host a meeting including the Quartet as well as Israeli and Palestinian officials," ministry spokesman Mohammad Kayed said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned in an interview on Sunday that the international peacemaking Quartet will have "failed" if it cannot kickstart negotiations by January 26.

"If the Quartet can't get the Israeli and Palestinian sides to the table by January 26, it means they have failed and the Palestinian leadership will study its position and act accordingly," he told Palestine TV.

Two mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel on Sunday, causing no damage or injuries, an Israeli police spokeswoman said.

"Two mortar shells fired from the northern Gaza Strip fell this morning in the Eshkol district, there was no damage or injuries," Luba Samri told AFP.

Palestinian leaders decided on Saturday to seek sessions of the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League, hoping for action to halt Israeli settlement.

A statement by the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization said continued settlement growth in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem was liable "to destroy all chances of a peace process and the two-state solution."

Israel said its warplanes killed a senior jihadist militant on Friday, two days after announcing it was weighing a wider campaign in the territory to curb a boost in rocket attacks.

Israel's military identified the man killed as a "senior operative in the global jihad movement" who was involved in planning an attack from Egypt.

The U.S. State Department said Congress has released $40 million in aid to the Palestinians, part of the nearly $200 million that was frozen over their bid for full U.N. recognition.

"We have been working with Congress for some time, because we don't think it's in U.S. national interests to keep this money frozen," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters, saying U.S. diplomats were "gratified" by the move.

The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency has said a nuclear Iran might not pose an "existential threat" to the Jewish state, in remarks reported Thursday by Haaretz newspaper.

"Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely," the daily quoted Mossad chief Tamir Pardo as telling a group of Israeli ambassadors.

Palestinian militants fired a rocket at southern Israel on Thursday morning, hours after Israeli warplanes attacked "terror sites" inside the Gaza Strip, the army said.

"A rocket fired from Gaza exploded in an open field in the Eshkol region," a military spokesman told Agence France Presse.