Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, will today make an historic call for a return to negotiations with Israel as he begins a whirlwind tour of Russia and Europe to rescue his disintegrating administration.

On the 58th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state, Mr Abbas, the leader of the moderate Fatah party whose Islamist rivals Hamas were controversially voted into power in January, will urge militants in the Gaza Strip to halt 'futile' rocket attacks on Israel.

"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 will say according to the text of a speech to be broadcast later today to mark the anniversary of Naqba - Palestinian for 'the catastrophe'.

"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."

Previous calls for Israel to resume peace talks have been rebuffed. Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that it was impossible to reach a peace agreement with President Abbas by bypassing Hamas. He said: "No one can ignore the reality following the Palestinian election, substantive political power has moved to Hamas."

President Abbas will call on Hamas to denounce the continuing violence of militants, such as Islamic Jihad, within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He will say that their actions: "...only justify Israel’s aggression against our people."

"Fiery statements, speeches and slogans can only result in more isolation, and what is more dangerous, will lead us into the pothole Israel wants to keep us in, in order to say we have no Palestinian partner to negotiate with," he said.

Mr Abbas is seen as the acceptable face of the Palestinian Administration by America and Europe, who both regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation and have cut off aid payments to the administration leading to crippling shortages of cash and 165,000 civil servants going unpaid.

The Palestinian President's calls for peace will come less than 24 hours after the worst violence in the West Bank for more than a month, when Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians, including a leading Islamic Jihad militant, in the northern town of Qabatiya. The bloodshed drew vows of revenge from the organisation.

Russia has broken ranks with the West by refusing to rule out dealing with Hamas in a move which observers have seen as an attempt by the former superpower to reassert its influence in the Middle East. The US and EU have suspended all aid until Hamas reounces violence, recognises Israel’s right to exist and agrees to abide by existing agreements

Mr Abbas is due to meet Vladminir Putin, the Russian President, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi at 1pm local time (1000 BST) today.

"We will talk about strengthening relations between our peoples and resolving the Palestinians’ financial problems," Mr Abbas told the Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview published today. He added: "As I see it now, the world cannot and should not punish the Palestinian people for their democratic choice."

Alexei Malashenko, of the Carnegie Moscow Centre policy think-tank, said that the Palestinian President needed to divine how much the Kremlin genuinely supports the Hamas-led administration which has pushed the region to the brink of civil war and economic collapse.

"Russia faces a choice," he said, "It has to decide who it supports: Abbas or Hamas."

After his meeting with Mr Putin, President Abbas is due to head to Strasbourg where he will address the European parliament tomorrow.

The President hopes to persuade the EU to broker a deal which would allow it to funnel aid into the Gaza Strip and West Bank by bypassing Hamas. Resistance in Congress is making a mechanism drawn up last week to allow payments to flow into the impoverished region difficult to implement despite official support from the White House.

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