President Michel Suleiman travelled to New York on Monday to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting where he is expected to reject the naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon and stress the country’s commitment to Security Council resolution 1701.

A high-ranking Lebanese official told As Safir daily that during his speech on Sept. 21, Suleiman will stress the importance of U.N. recognition of the Palestinian state and a fair solution to refugees through their return to their homeland.

Hamas on Sunday said it would not back a U.N. membership bid, and warned that no Palestinian leader had a mandate to sacrifice fundamental Palestinian rights.

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya, speaking in Gaza, said the group also continued to support the establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of "historical Palestine" but would not seek to disrupt the U.N. bid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that next week's bid by the Palestinians for U.N. membership had no chance of success and that they would ultimately seek renewed talks.

"Their attempt to be accepted as a member of the United Nations will fail," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "That attempt will fail, since it has to pass through the Security Council."

Several hundred Palestinian and Israeli women demonstrated on Saturday on each side of Israel's Qalandiya checkpoint, the main passage point between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Assembling nearly a week ahead of a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations Security Council, the women all gathered under the slogan "Women want an independent Palestine".

The European Union on Saturday called for a "constructive solution" on the issue of Palestinian statehood and a resumption of negotiations with Israel.

"We continue to believe that a constructive solution that can gather as much support as possible and allows for the resumption of negotiations is the best and only way to deliver the peace and two state solution the Palestinian people want," said Jaja Cocijanic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed Friday to lodge a bid for U.N. membership before the Security Council in one week, despite mounting Israeli and U.S. opposition.

"We are going to the Security Council," he said in a televised address to the Palestinian people from his Ramallah headquarters.

Israeli officials fear the Palestinians may launch legal action against Jewish settlements in the West Bank if their bid for upgraded United Nations status is successful, a media report said on Friday.

The daily Haaretz reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had on Thursday told EU and U.S. envoys of his concerns about a possible Palestinian recourse to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on the settlers issue.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Thursday that the Palestinians will submit their U.N. bid on September 23 but are willing to listen to other ideas in the meantime.

Envoys from the United States, the European Union and the diplomatic Quartet have been holding 11th-hour talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in an effort to get them back into direct peace talks that stalled a year ago.

Hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Wednesday there will be "harsh and grave consequences" if the Palestinians persist with their plan to seek U.N. membership as a state.

Speaking shortly before a scheduled meeting with EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton, Lieberman did not elaborate on the threatened consequences.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated that face-to-face talks were the key to peace with the Palestinians, in talks with Germany's foreign minister who wound up a trip to Israel on Tuesday.

"Peace will be achieved only through direct negotiations and not through unilateral moves," Netanyahu told Guido Westerwelle, according to a statement issued by his office after the two met in Jerusalem on Monday.