Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday to work hard to narrow huge differences with the Israelis at a "pivotal" time for peace talks.

Palestinian and Israeli leaders have been locked in talks the U.S. secretary of state fought hard to launch in July after a three-year hiatus, but as negotiations have faltered, Israel has kicked up more obstacles to a peace deal that would end decades of conflict.

A far-right Israeli cabinet minister on Sunday paid a brief visit to the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, police said.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel, deputy leader of the hardline national religious Jewish Home party, made a short visit to the plaza during the morning as Israel marked the one-day Jewish festival of Purim, police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.

An Israeli minister on Sunday said Washington's top diplomat was "wrong" for pressuring Israel in peace talks, a day before Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas visits the White House.

His remarks came two days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Israel is allow the resumption of diesel deliveries into Gaza on Sunday, a day after the territory's sole power plant stopped working due to a lack of fuel, officials said.

The defense ministry had on Thursday shut down the Kerem Shalom goods crossing into southern Gaza after militants there fired scores of rockets over the border, although no-one was injured.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Saturday Mahmud Abbas was "not a partner for a final peace deal" as the Palestinian leader prepared to meet U.S. President Barack Obama.

Abbas "is a partner for receiving, not giving," Yaalon told Israel's Channel 2 television in an interview.

Israeli soldiers opened fire Saturday at "suspects" who approached the border with Lebanon, a military spokeswoman said.

"A certain number of suspects approached the Israel-Lebanon border. Soldiers fired in the air to warn them away, and they moved off," she said.

A Jordanian soldier serving a life sentence for murdering Israeli schoolgirls in 1997 is on a hunger strike to demand his release following the the killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers, his son said Saturday.

"My father started a hunger strike on Friday. He said he demands the government release him from jail after the Israelis killed Jordanian judge Raed Zeiter," Ahmad Dakamseh's son Seif told AFP.

The Gaza Strip's only power plant shut down Saturday due to a lack of fuel from Israel, which closed a goods crossing after militant rocket attacks, a Palestinian official said.

An Israeli official denied the claim, however, saying the lack of fuel was due to infighting between the Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

As Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas prepares to touch down in Washington for a meeting on Monday with Barack Obama, an extension of peace talks with Israel looks far from certain.

Palestinian and Israeli leaders have been locked in talks U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry fought hard to launch in July after a three-year hiatus, but as negotiations have faltered, Israel has kicked up more obstacles to a peace deal that would end decades of conflict.

The Israeli army said it shelled a Hizbullah position in southern Lebanon on Friday after an explosion targeted an Israeli patrol on the border, as the Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant reportedly claimed responsibility for the bomb attack.

Agence France Presse quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that Israel shelled southern Lebanon after an explosion on the Lebanese-Israeli border.