A senior Palestinian National Authority (PNA) official on Monday denied secret contacts between the PNA and Israel on resuming the peace negotiations.

An Israeli report saying there were secret contacts to resume the peace talks is "rootless and untrue," Nemmer Hamad, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement to Xinhua.

The peace negotiations between Israel and the PNA stopped last year after Israel approved several plans to expand Jewish settlements in the area between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The Israeli daily of Ha'aretz reported earlier on Monday that there were contacts between Israel and the PNA to discuss the resumption of the stalled peace negotiation, though the PNA publicly refused to resume it.

Abbas' aide clarified that the PNA is waiting for the outcome of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington during which the new hawkish leader is scheduled to hold with US President Barack Obama on Monday.

Netanyahu rejected so far the idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state as an option to end the chronic Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while he prefers to have economic peace with the Palestinians.