Thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza rallied Thursday in solidarity with Israeli-held prisoners, as peace talks near collapse after the Jewish state refused to free long-serving inmates.

To mark Prisoners Day, Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has his headquarters, after hundreds took part in early rallies in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip late Wednesday.

A meeting between Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed, an official said, after a fatal shooting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on Palestinian leaders.

But Palestinians said the postponement came at the behest of the Americans, and to give time for U.S. envoy Martin Indyk to arrive in the region to attend.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are hammering out a way to extend their faltering peace talks beyond an April 29 deadline, a U.S. official said Tuesday, refuting calls from a leading daily to call it quits.

More talks between the two sides will be held on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, although it was not immediately clear if U.S. lead negotiator Martin Indyk would take part.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday pinned blame on the Palestinian leadership after a deadly attack on an Israeli police officer near the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

"This assassination is the result of the incitement to hatred by Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who continue to peddle hate-filled material against Israel," Netanyahu charged.

Israeli troops were scouring a village near the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, residents said, a day after a gunman killed an Israeli nearby.

The incident at the start of the Jewish Passover holiday on Monday was the first deadly attack on an Israeli in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, and came as tensions were soaring over the near-breakdown of U.S.-brokered peace talks.

A Palestinian woman died after inhaling tear gas used by Israeli troops near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, a medical official said Tuesday, but the military denied any involvement.

The army "fired tear gas" at stone-throwing Palestinians late Monday near the home of the woman, who was "suffering from health problems," the medical official told AFP.

An Israeli was killed and two others wounded in a shooting near the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, the army said.

"Fire was opened at Israeli civilian vehicles on route 35, near Hebron, and we're conducting widespread searches for the perpetrators... an Israeli civilian was killed in the attack," an army spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Israeli police arrested five Jews suspected of trying to sacrifice a goat at Jerusalem's highly sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem Monday as the Jewish Passover holiday begins, a spokeswoman said.

The five "extreme rightwing Jews" were dragging the goat towards the flashpoint compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount when they were stopped and taken into custody, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are to meet again Wednesday with U.S. mediator Martin Indyk in a bid to try and save the peace process from crumbling, a Palestinian official said.

Indyk would travel to the region to oversee the meeting, the second three-way talks since last Thursday, said the official who requested anonymity.

Hizbullah is gaining new combat experience in Syria, shedding its guerrilla tactics to fight alongside an army, and shifting its narrative to explain the battle against "Sunni extremists".

Its forces, who used their homeground advantage and methods such as underground tunnels against Israel's army in Lebanon, are now the targets of unconventional warfare on unfamiliar terrain in Syria.