The Palestinians will ask the Arab League to call for the convening of an "international peace conference" during talks in Cairo, a Palestinian official told AFP on Sunday.

Azzam al-Ahmad, who is in Cairo with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas for talks with the Arab League representatives, said the delegation would seek backing for the conference, without giving further details.

"One of the proposals we will request from the Arab Follow-Up Committee is for a call to convene an international peace conference on the Palestinian issue," Ahmad told AFP by phone from Cairo.

He said the Palestinian delegation was hopeful "that the final statement of the Follow-Up Committee would include a call for an international conference on the Palestinian issue."

Abbas is in Cairo to hold talks with the committee, which tracks efforts to advance peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, after five rounds of "exploratory" talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

The discussions, intended to chart a way back to direct negotiations, ended without a deal to continue talks.

Sponsored by the peacemaking Quartet and held in Jordan, the discussions came in the framework of a Quartet bid to kickstart talks.

But the Palestinians say Israel failed to present its parameters for territory and security, as requested by the Quartet, and that they will not hold direct talks without a freeze of Israeli settlement activity.

They also want discussions on borders to be based on the lines that preceded the 1967 Six Day War.

Ahmad said Abbas would present a "detailed report on the communications and efforts that have been made in this latest period... with particular regard to the exploratory meetings in Amman."

Israel has urged the Palestinians to begin direct negotiations without preconditions.

The Quartet, which comprises the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia, has also said it wants to see talks resume, but officials -- including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon -- have called on Israel to provide the Palestinians with goodwill gestures in a bid to lure them back to talks.

Israeli airstrikes kill man in Gaza: medics
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) Feb 12, 2012 - A Palestinian in Gaza died early Sunday after being wounded in a series of retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, Gaza medical sources said.

The fatality was identified as Abdel Karim Zatuniya, an elderly man serving as a guard at the barracks in the Zeitun area, south-east of Gaza city, who was wounded in an airstrike late Saturday night in which four other people were wounded. No militant faction in Gaza announced Zatuniya a member.

Three other Saturday night airstrikes -- near the Karni crossing east of Gaza city, east of Khan Younis and at an empty house in Rafah -- resulted in no further casualties.

The Israeli military confirmed launching the strikes, and in a statement early Sunday said its aircraft "targeted a terror tunnel and a weapon manufacturing facility in the northern Gaza Strip, a terror tunnel in the central Gaza Strip and an additional terror tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip," noting direct hits.

"These sites were targeted in response to the rocket fire on communities in southern Israel," the statement read, noting that a Friday night rocket from Gaza that struck between two houses in the Hof Ashkelon area had lightly injured an Israeli woman.

Earlier Saturday night, a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel causing no casualties or damage, an Israeli police spokesman said.

"A rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at the Eshkol region. It landed in an open area without causing any damage or injuries," Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Hamas prime minister of Gaza Ismail Haniya reiterated his movement's long-held stance it "will never recognise Israel," as Palestinian efforts to form a temporary unity government headed by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas continue.

Israel rejects efforts by Hamas to link up with Fatah, and views Hamas as a terrorist organisation and Iran as its sponsor and weapon supplier.

"The resistance will continue until all Palestinian land, including Al-Quds (Jerusalem), has been liberated and all the refugees have returned," Haniya said.