Abbas calls for peace talks with Israel

Abbas also urged Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip to halt rocket attacks on Israel. He said the violence encourages Israel to step up its military activity and proceed with unilateral plans to impose a border on the Palestinians.

"I tell our neighbours, the Israelis, that we want to make a just and lasting peace with you, and we want a better future for our children and yours. So come to make this year a year of peace," he said in remarks set to be broadcast later Monday on Palestinian television and radio.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the speech.

Abbas called yesterday for a lifting of economic sanctions, which have left tens of thousands of government employees unpaid for the last two months.

"Our first priority is to lift the economic and political siege imposed on our people, then to end the occupation of our land once and for all, and to establish our independent Palestinian state," Abbas said in a pre-recorded televised address to mark the "catastrophe" of Israel's creation in 1948.

The European Union and United States have both suspended aid payments to the Palestinian Authority since the radical Islamist movement Hamas formed a new government in March over its refusal to renounce violence or recognise Israel's right to exist.

Abbas, who is currently in Russia where he will hold talks with President Vladimir Putin, said voters should not be punished for electing Hamas.

Earlier Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians including a leading Islamic Jihad militant on Sunday in the bloodiest fighting in weeks in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli military official and Palestinian sources said.

Four other militants died in the raid in which soldiers surrounded a house in the town of Qabatiya, as Eshkar hid inside, including Eshkar's brother, Dallal said.