Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas visited Saudi Arabia and met King Abdullah on Friday to seek urgent aid for his administration as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan nears.

The leaders, who met in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, discussed "the financial crisis of the Palestinian Authority (PA) which will no longer be able to pay its employees as Ramadan approaches," the Palestinians' top diplomat in Riyadh said.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso called on Sunday for a return to Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning the peace process must not become "an orphan of the Arab Spring."

Barroso was speaking after talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on the first day of a trip which includes stops in the West Bank and Israel.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday in Paris, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"President Abbas will visit France on Thursday and hold important meetings with European and U.S. officials, including French President Francois Hollande and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Friday," Erakat said.

Unknown assailants shot and wounded a Palestinian lawmaker in the city of Jenin overnight, he told AFP, after the city's governor was targeted in a shooting incident in early May.

Shami al-Shami, a member of the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, was hit in the thigh by two bullets, he told AFP, saying he was treated at a local hospital after the incident in the early hours of Sunday morning.

A planned meeting on Sunday between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's vice prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, has been called off, a senior Palestinian official said.

"The meeting between president Abbas and Shaul Mofaz has been postponed to a later date," the official in the West Bank city of Ramallah told Agence France Presse on Saturday, without giving a reason or a new date.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will hold talks with Israeli vice prime minister Shaul Mofaz on Sunday, a senior Palestinian official told Voice of Palestine radio.

"President Abbas will meet with Mofaz on Sunday in Ramallah at Mofaz's request," negotiator Mohammad Eshtayeh told the official radio station Wednesday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to help unblock long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Putin met with Abbas during a stop in Bethlehem on a brief trip to the West Bank, a day after a stop in Israel where he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.

Envoys from the Middle East Quartet met in Brussels on Friday amid calls from the Palestinians to step up action to halt continuing Israeli settlement activity.

Officials from the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia gathered "to consult as they routinely do over the phone as well", said a spokesman for EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton.

A reconciliation was reached on Monday between the former head of the Palestinian Armed Struggle, Mahmoud Issa, who goes by the nom de guerre of al-Lino, and the former leader of Fatah in Lebanon Munir al-Maqdah, reported As Safir on Tuesday.

The tense security situation in Lebanon was the main driving force for the reconciliation, revealed Palestinian sources to the newspaper.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will for the first time meet French President Francois Hollande when he visits Paris later this week, his spokesman said on Monday.

"President Abbas will visit France on June 8 and will meet with French President Francois Hollande," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.