The Gaza Strip's militant Hamas rulers have said they plan to let private contractors take over the running of the Palestinian territory's border crossings with Egypt and Israel.

"The government is to give the private sector the opportunity to handle the technical management of crossing points from the Gaza Strip," Hamas deputy prime minister Ziad al-Zaza told Agence France Presse on Saturday and said that a commission of seven businessmen would be dedicated to the project.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday expressed concern Sunday at the progress of talks between world powers and Iran, saying that Tehran still sought to acquire a nuclear arms capability.

"Iran, in fact, is getting everything and giving virtually nothing," he told the cabinet on the eve of a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and said he would discuss the issue with her.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday she will fully support efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to relaunch the Middle East peace process during her upcoming visit to Israel.

"We need, as soon as possible, a stable two-country solution, with a Jewish state of Israel and at the same time a state for the Palestinians," Merkel said in her weekly podcast.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that U.S. attempts to forge an agreement on a framework for peace talks with Israel had so far failed but that the efforts are "extremely serious".

Speaking in Paris after talks this week with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Abbas told journalists: "So far the Americans have not been able to put these ideas into a framework, even if the efforts are extremely serious".

Sixteen Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army gunfire Friday in two separate incidents near the border fence in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources said.

Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry, said a 12-year-old boy was in serious condition after being shot in the head northeast of Gaza City near Jabalia.

Palestinians held a protest Friday in the West Bank city of Hebron to demand its main street be reopened, 20 years after the Israeli military closed it on security grounds.

An AFP correspondent said about 1,000 Palestinians joined by Israeli and international activists marched from the Ali mosque to a flashpoint Israeli military post on Shuhada Street, chanting "Stop occupation" and "No occupation, no settlements."

A prominent hardline cleric in Iran warned on Friday against the Islamic republic resuming ties with the United States, and said any attempt to do so would prove futile.

"Some people have created an underground network for establishing relations with the America," Ayatollah Ahmad Janati told crowds at Friday prayers in Tehran, in comments broadcast by state media.

Ideas proposed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas cannot "serve as the basis for a framework accord" with Israel, a Palestinian official said Friday.

"The ideas proposed cannot be accepted by the Palestinian side as the basis for a framework accord between the Palestinians and Israel as they do not take into account the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, after Abbas and Kerry met in Paris this week.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in Paris on Thursday for their second round of talks in two days.

The two men met for two hours with their teams in an upscale Parisian hotel, where Abbas hosted Kerry for dinner and late night talks on Wednesday, U.S. officials said.

Syrian media on Thursday accused Jordan of trying to stir up the rebel front in the south of the country with support from the United States and Saudi Arabia.

"The southern front is today the most prominent after the subject was widely discussed under the aegis of the palace in Jordan," the Al-Thawra government daily wrote.