Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas warned on Friday against Israel using peace talks as a "cover" to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Abbas was speaking in Morocco at a meeting of the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Committee amid heightened concern by Arab and Western nations over new Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The Israeli army fired live rounds and tear gas at protesters near the border fence in the Gaza Strip on Friday, wounding two Palestinians, medics and an AFP correspondent said.

Troops fired at some 300 demonstrators who were protesting against Israel's destruction of farmland for its 300-meter (yard) buffer zone, the correspondent said.

Israel summoned European ambassadors on Friday accusing them of pro-Palestinian "bias" damaging to peace prospects, in a tit-for-tat move after Israeli envoys were called in over settlement expansion plans.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called in the ambassadors of Britain, France, Italy and Spain to "stress to them that their perpetual one-sided stance against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians is unacceptable and creates the impression they are only seeking ways to blame Israel," his spokesman said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the European Union Thursday for summoning envoys over plans for some 1,800 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

"This is hypocrisy. The EU calls our ambassadors in because of the construction of a few houses? When did the EU call in the Palestinian ambassadors about incitement that calls for Israel's destruction?" Netanyahu asked foreign correspondents at his annual new year reception.

Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador to London to the Foreign Office on Thursday over plans to build more than 1,800 new settler homes, a spokesman said.

Israel unveiled the proposals on Friday in a move the Palestinians said was aimed at forcing the United States to abandon its push towards Middle East peace.

A top Palestinian leader Thursday accused Israel of imposing its own agenda onto Washington's Middle East peace push, pressing issues that overshadowed Palestinian demands.

The remarks by senior Fatah party member Nabil Shaath came after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's 10th visit to the region to try to push a framework for final status talks as an April deadline for the negotiations loomed.

A tale of tragic romance from the Palestinian territories is among five nominees for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards.

The contenders announced Thursday in Beverly Hills include Hany Abu-Assad's "Omar," the story of a love affair and its consequences against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip against training camps used by the armed wing of the territory's Hamas rulers left four children and a woman wounded overnight, Palestinian medical sources said Thursday.

The five Palestinian civilians were hit by shrapnel but their wounds are not life-threatening, the sources said.

Paris - Naharnet Exclusive Report

Officials concerned with Lebanese affairs in the French administration assured on Wednesday that the Saudi Arabian donation to the military institution has taken its first steps towards implementation.

Thousands of African women and children seeking asylum in Israel staged a protest march in Tel Aviv Wednesday against the Jewish state's immigration policies, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

"We are refugees," women chanted, many of them carrying infants or pushing prams along the streets of this coastal city where most of them live.