The United States on Monday insisted that no peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have been cancelled, despite Palestinian claims to the contrary.
"I can assure you that no meeting has been cancelled," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters, AFP reported, after Palestinian Authority officials announced a session.
The peace talks, brokered by the US, resumed last month after a three-year stalemate in negotiations due to Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 which Palestinians seek to be part of their independent state, along with the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian announcement over the cancelled talks, scheduled to be held in Jericho, came hours after three men were shot dead in the West Bank after Israeli soliders launched a pre-dawn raid on the Qalandiya refugee camp.
Witnesses told Reuters Israeli armoured jeeps entered the Qalandiya refugee camp, which lies near Jerusalem, at around 3 a.m. local time and were met by stone-throwing camp residents. The Israeli forces responded with gunfire and left the camp around daybreak, the witnesses told Reuters.
19 other Palestinians were injured in the clashes, hospital sources told AFP.
