Speaker Nabih Berri and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah received telephone calls from Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal and his deputy Ismail Hanieh to condemn the terror attacks in Beirut's southern suburbs of Bourj al-Barajneh, adding that the Palestinians who were allegedly involved in the blast were not refugees in Lebanon, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was executed by two Palestinians and a Syrian.

The exiled head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said "positive contacts" have been made towards securing a long-term truce with Israel, in a video posted Friday on an Arab website.

Meshaal's comments posted by pan-Arab news website al-Arabi al-Jadid were the first by a leader of Hamas, which does not recognize Israel, to openly confirm such contacts with the Israelis.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has met Saudi King Salman during a pilgrimage to the kingdom, state news agency SPA said Saturday.

He headed a delegation from the Palestinian Islamist movement in a two-day Umra pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca, SPA said. 

After years of strained relations over the Syrian conflict, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is looking to mend ties with its traditional backer Iran. But reconciliation is proving far from simple.

The outbreak of Syria's civil war nearly four years ago provoked a rupture between Hamas and Iran, after the movement threw its support behind rebels fighting President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Tehran.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal remains welcome in Qatar, the Gulf state's foreign minister said on Monday, brushing off claims that the Palestinian leader had been asked to leave.

"Khaled Meshaal is a dear guest in Qatar. He is in fact at home," Khalid al-Attiyah said, denying that the head of Hamas' politburo was set to relocate to Turkey.

The exiled leader of Hamas denied Friday that the Islamist movement was running a "shadow government" in Gaza as charged by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.

Khaled Meshaal was speaking in the Tunisian capital days after Abbas threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas, saying it was not allowing the government to operate in the Gaza Strip.

Future developments in the Gaza conflict -- attrition warfare, a ground incursion or a ceasefire -- depend on events on the ground, the status of the forces on both sides and internal dynamics, analysts say.

-- What is the current balance of power in the conflict?

Israel pounded Gaza on Saturday with scores of air strikes, killing 10 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and bringing down an 12-story apartment building as Egypt called for new truce talks.

Since a previous round of frantic Egyptian diplomacy collapsed last Tuesday, shattering nine days of calm, 86 Palestinians and a four-year-old Israeli boy have been killed in the violence.

The Palestinian president and Hamas' exiled leader Friday urged the United Nations to draw up a "timetable" for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories to end, Qatar state media said.

President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal issued the appeal during talks in Doha, as fighting continues in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Qatar's state news agency QNA said.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas held talks with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Thursday as renewed fighting raged in Gaza following the collapse of Egyptian-brokered truce efforts.

The talks in Doha, where Meshaal is based, were hosted by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a key backer of the Islamist movement which dominates Gaza, the Gulf state's QNA news agency reported.