Israel has handed the Palestinians a proposal they hope will lead to an extension of their peace talks beyond an April 29 deadline, as efforts to salvage the negotiations come to a head.
The fate of the US-brokered peace process could be decided within days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, warning that "either the matter will be resolved or it will blow up".
Netanyahu's remarks to ministers from his rightwing Likud party came as US officials were working around the clock to prevent a collapse of the negotiations over a dispute about Palestinian prisoners.
"In any case, there won't be any deal without Israel knowing clearly what it will get in exchange," Netanyahu said.
According to a Palestinian official, Israel presented Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas with a draft agreement to relaunch talks. Abbas was to examine the proposal during the night, he said.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
An Israeli official would not provide details on the proposal but told AFP: "Now the Palestinians need to reply if they are willing to continue negotiations."
With the talks teetering on the brink of collapse, Washington, which pushed the sides to relaunch talks in July, has been fighting an uphill battle to coax them into accepting a framework proposal which would extend the negotiations beyond April 29.
But the issue has become tied up with the fate of 26 veteran Palestinian prisoners who Israel was to have freed this weekend under the terms agreed to relaunch talks.
Israel on Friday informed the Palestinians they would not free the prisoners, with the US State Department confirming it was working "intensively" to resolve the dispute.
US officials said Secretary of State John Kerry, in Paris on Sunday, spoke with Netanyahu.
After those talks, Kerry told reporters in the French capital that it was not yet appropriate for the US to make any public judgment of the situation "at this important moment".
"It's really a question between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and what prime minister Netanyahu is prepared to do," he added.
An Israeli official told AFP on Saturday that Israel was willing to free the prisoners but the Palestinians were "creating difficulties".
Under the deal that relaunched peace talks, Israel agreed to release 104 prisoners held since before the 1993 Oslo peace accords in exchange for the Palestinians freezing all efforts to seek further international recognition.
So far, Israel has freed 78 of them in three batches, and the last group - which the Palestinians insist includes 14 Arab Israelis jailed for nationalist attacks - was to have been released on March 29.
