As senior Israeli and Palestinian envoys resumed long-stalled peace talks in Washington, Israeli media questioned the motives of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in taking to the negotiating table.

Israeli and Palestinian officials were meeting Tuesday in Washington for a second day of direct talks -- their first in three years. The State Department said they would continue for at least nine months.

A rocket fired from Gaza hit southern Israel Tuesday, causing no casualties, a police spokesman said, as a first full day of resumed Middle East peace talks was to open.

"A rocket was fired from Gaza and exploded in a field in Israeli territory without causing any damage or casualties," Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Israel's chief negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, hailed a "positive" mood at resumed peace talks with the Palestinians in Washington, the first in three years.

"The atmosphere was positive," she told public radio early on Tuesday Israel time after a dinner with her Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat hosted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed Tuesday to meet again within the next two weeks, aiming to seal a final peace deal in nine months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.

The two sides will meet in either Israel or the Palestinian territories and "our objective will be" to reach a "final status agreement over the course of the next nine months," Kerry told reporters after Israelis and Palestinians ended a three-year freeze on talks.

The Israeli and Palestinian delegations to renewed peace talks have agreed in principle to continue negotiations for at least nine months, the U.S. State Department said Monday.

"They have all agreed to focus on having talks not just for the sake of talks, but this is the beginning of direct final status negotiations on a nine-month, at least a nine-month, timetable," Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni said Monday that peace talks with the Palestinians would be "very tough" but insisted they were necessary because of the growing troubles in the Middle East.

"It is going to be very tough and problematic," the Israeli justice minister told reporters after meeting U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon and before going to Washington for the start of preliminary talks.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday named a former ambassador to Israel as America's special envoy to help shepherd new Middle East peace talks.

Just hours before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were to resume talks frozen for three years, Kerry said Martin Indyk would take on the difficult task of trying to guide both sides to reach a full-fledged peace deal.

A court on Monday cleared seven Israeli Arabs of murder in the 2005 mob killing of a soldier, a lawyer for one of the accused said.

"We heard today that the court accepted the defense arguments in full," Sigal Dvori told public radio.

The U.S. on Sunday announced the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks following years of stalemate, after Israel's Cabinet agreed to release 104 Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks.

The return to direct contacts between the sides gave U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry his first concrete achievement after months of shuttle diplomacy.

The Israeli government on Sunday approved the contentious release of long-serving Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners, to coincide with the resumption of peace talks, public radio said.

It said that the 22-member cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal by 13 votes to seven with two abstentions.