Israeli soldiers have shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security officials say. The shootings are the latest of a series of fatal incidents in the past week threatening to unravel an eight-month cease-fire and dash hopes that Israel's pullout from Gaza last month could lead to a resumption of peace talks. Both sides have given conflicting accounts, and it wis unclear whether the fatalities are a result of one or two separate incidents. Palestinian witnesses say troops opened fire on unarmed protesters who threw stones at an Army jeep, east of Tulkarm, a town in the northern West Bank, killing an 18-year-old youth. Medics say the youth died immediately of his wounds.
But an Israeli military spokesman says soldiers have shot at gunmen who fired first at the troops and damaged a military vehicle. The spokesman says soldiers later found one body near the scene, but believed they had shot two armed men. Palestinian officials say Israel has informed them of the second fatality but that they have not yet identified the body.
A spokesman for the Yasser Arafat Brigades, an offshoot of the militant wing of the mainstream Fatah movement, says Israel had killed one of its members in Tulkarm. The same group has claimed responsibility for gunning down three young Jewish settlers on a road near the West Bank city of Bethlehem last week. The latest deaths mean three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops since Thursday when soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man who threw a firebomb at an Israeli car in Bethlehem. The Bethlehem shooting came amid spiralling tensions since the killings of the settlers last week for which Israel has retaliated by restricting Palestinian traffic on many West Bank roads and stepping up military patrols.