The Palestinians on Thursday rejected the idea of an Israeli presence on the eastern border of their future state, which was mooted by Israel's hawkish prime minister.

"The Palestinian leadership will not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the Palestinian territories after the end of the occupation," Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP.

"We will not accept anything less than a completely sovereign Palestinian state on all the territories with its own borders, resources and airspace," Abu Rudeina said.

"We will not accept any Israeli presence, either military or civilian, on our land, and we will not accept that our state be under Israeli protection."

Abu Rudeina added that Netanyahu's insistence on an Israeli border guard would "place more obstacles in the way of restarting peace talks."