WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to do more to end militant attacks against Israeli targets now that Israel has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip.

The dominant view in Washington is that Israel took a major step last month when it ended 38 years of military rule in Gaza, and there is now a chance to revive a U.S.-backed peace "road map" that envisions Palestinian statehood.

"The Israelis are out of Gaza, there are contacts and relationships between the Israelis and the Palestinians that are unknown in recent years because of the work that they did in the disengagement in Gaza," Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.

But periodic flare-ups of violence have threatened an eight-month-old ceasefire and hindered peace steps to be weighed by Abbas and Bush at their 1345 GMT meeting, to be followed an hour later by a joint news conference.

Abbas was embarrassed ahead of the meeting by the killing of three West Bank settlers on Sunday in an attack claimed on behalf of an armed group in his Fatah movement.

Israel killed a senior militant the same day, froze security contacts with the Palestinians and reimposed some West Bank roadblocks it had lifted.

"There is more that the Palestinian leadership can do to end violence and dismantle terrorist organizations," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Abbas told Spanish daily el Pais that rogue elements not linked to Fatah killed the settlers. "Everyone is respecting the truce," he said, referring to main militant factions. "(Israel is using violence) as pretext to suspend dialogue with us."

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