Israeli troops have shot and killed two Palestinians in the West Bank, sources say.

Palestinian security officials said one unarmed Palestinian was found dead in nearby Tulkarim after a stone-throwing protest against Israeli forces, and that Israel later informed them that
its troops had recovered another body, not yet identified.

The shooting is the latest in a series of fatal incidents in the past week threatening to unravel an eight-month ceasefire and dash hopes Israel's pullout from Gaza last month could lead to a resumption of peace talks.

Witnesses said Israeli troops on Friday opened fire on unarmed protesters who threw stones at an army jeep, east of Tulkarim in the northern West Bank, killing an 18-year-old youth. Palestinian medics said the youth died immediately of his wounds.

But an Israeli military spokesman denied that and said that soldiers shot at armed men who fired first at the troops and damaged a military vehicle, and that two armed Palestinians were hit but their condition was unclear.

Abbas: Statehood possible before 2009

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said that an independent Palestinian state can be ready by the end of US President George Bush's term in January 2009 - although Bush now refuses to set a deadline.

Bush has pulled back from an aim he set a year ago to establish a Palestinian state by the end of his second term, but Abbas told journalists in an interview on Friday that an independent state was "realistic, if we work on it from now".

Abbas said he did not believe Bush had intended to make his comments after their talks at the White House on Thursday.

"I had the impression that the comments of President Bush were not planned, that he had not set out to say what he did. We had no discussion about this topic," the Palestinian Authority president said.

"It was not a political position but a position expressed on the spot."

Bush surprised observers with his comment at a press conference after the White House talks.

"I believe that two democratic states living side by side in peace is possible. I can't tell you when it's going to happen. It's happening," Bush said.

"If it happens before I get out of office, I'll be there to witness the ceremony. And if doesn't, we will work hard to lay that foundation so that the process becomes irreversible," the US president added.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians carry the body of a Palestinian man, name not available, who was killed by Israeli troops, into an ambulance, next to the West Bank village of Husan near Bethlehem, Thursday Oct. 20, 2005. (AP)