Peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been cancelled after Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinians during clashes in the West Bank, a Palestinian official said.
"The meeting that was to take place in Jericho ... today (Monday) was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Qalandiya today," the official said, referring to the refugee camp where the clashes erupted before dawn.
He did not set a new date.
"What happened today in Qalandiya shows the real intentions of the Israeli government," Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP as reports of the shooting started to emerge.
He called on the US administration to "take serious and quick steps" to prevent the collapse of peace efforts.
Medics earlier reported three Palestinians shot dead and 19 wounded by Israeli security forces in Qalandiya camp, between Ramallah and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, very early Monday.
They named the dead as Rubeen Abed Fares, 30, and Yunis Jahjouh, 22, both shot in the chest, and Jihad Aslan, 20, who died of brain damage.
The hospital officials said all the casualties had been hit by live ammunition.
An Israeli police spokeswoman said that border police used "riot dispersal means" to disperse a stone-throwing crowd of 1,500 people, but she did confirm the use of live fire.
"In the early hours of the morning a border police team went into Qalandiya camp to arrest a hostile terrorist activist," spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
"After his arrest a mob of about 1,500 residents began a disturbance, throwing petrol bombs and stones, endangering the lives of force members, who responded with riot dispersal means," she said.
She said that three border policemen were lightly injured by stones.
The peace talks formally resumed this month after a hiatus of nearly three years, thanks to an intense bout of shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, had at the weekend said they expected a new round of talks to be held Monday in the West Bank town of Jericho, but there had been no official confirmation from either side, in accordance with a US-imposed news blackout.
The talks have been overshadowed by Israeli plans to build more than 2,000 new homes for Jewish settlers on occupied Palestinian territory.
