Palestinian and Israeli delegates met on Saturday in Jordan for a third "exploratory" meeting on the possibility of a resumption of peace talks, a Jordanian official said.

"The third meeting between the Palestinian delegate Saeb Erakat and Israel's Yitzhak Molcho began on Saturday just after 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) in the presence of Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh," the official told Agence France Presse.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will on Sunday begin a week-long European tour to Britain, Germany and Russia, his spokesman said on Thursday.

"Abbas will go on Sunday to London, and meet with Prime Minister David Cameron and other British officials on Monday and will brief them on the latest political developments in the region," Nabil Abu Rudeina to Agence France Presse.

A visit by Gaza's Hamas leader has angered the official Palestinian representatives in Tunisia who say they were ignored during the talks with the new government, a Palestinian source said Saturday.

Ismail Haniya, prime minister in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, visited Tunis Thursday to meet with the new moderate Islamist-led administration while he was on a tour of the region.

Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said support for Palestine should be a "religious and nationalist commitment" as he arrived in Tunis Thursday to a welcome from Tunisia's new leaders.

"Palestine is not a banner that we brandish like nobody's business, it's a religious and nationalist commitment," said Haniya after a meeting with Tunisia's moderate Islamist Prime Minister, Hamadi Jebali.

Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya will Monday meet the head of an Islamic aid group whose Gaza-bound vessel was stormed by Israeli troops in 2010 in a raid that left nine activists dead.

Haniya, who is making his first trip abroad since Hamas rose to power in Gaza in 2007, will tour the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara and meet relatives of the victims.

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.

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.

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.

Hundreds of Christian faithful, defying lashing rains and wind, filled the ancient Bethlehem church that marks Jesus' traditional birthplace for Christmas Day Mass on Sunday, even as a blast in a Nigerian church shattered the holiday's message of peace on earth.

Worshippers, dressed in their holiday best and some in the traditional attire of foreign lands, rushed into the Church of the Nativity under the cover of umbrellas, leaving Manger Square, with its 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) Christmas tree, deserted. The sanctuary was packed, and the overflow crowd waited eagerly in an arched corridor for a chance to enter.

Israel has lashed out at Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas for meeting a former woman prisoner who lured an Israeli teen to his death, accusing him of "putting murderers on a pedestal."

Palestinian Amna Muna was sentenced to life behind bars for seducing a teenage boy through an Internet chatroom who was later shot dead by militants in 2001, but was freed in October under terms of a prisoner swap deal.