Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas pressed the militant group Hamas on Wednesday to agree a Gaza deal quickly to avoid "dire consequences", the official Palestinian news agency reported.

"We call on the Hamas movement to quickly complete a prisoner deal, to spare our Palestinian people from the calamity of another catastrophic event with dire consequences, no less dangerous than the Nakba of 1948," Abbas said, referring to the war accompanying the creation of Israel which saw 760,000 Palestinians flee or forced from their homes.