ISRAELI troops shot dead two young Palestinians at a West Bank protest today on the 66th anniversary of the Naqba, or “catastrophe” of Palestinian displacement during Israel’s creation.

Three Palestinians were wounded, one seriously, when Israeli troops fired to disperse demonstrators near the Israeli Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank.

Protesters set fire to tyres and hurled stones at police at the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah and the police retaliated with tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire.

Ramallah Hospital emergency department head Dr Samir Saliba said those killed were 15 and 17 years old and had been shot by live rounds in the chest. 

The seriously wounded protester was also shot in the upper body, he said.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld admitted that troops broke up a “disturbance” in the area, but denied they used live fire.

Rallies were held in Nablus and Hebron and in many towns and villages throughout Palestine.

Thousands marched in the West Bank and Gaza to commemorate the displacement of whole communities during Israel’s 1948 creation.

Sirens wailed for 66 seconds at noon in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank to symbolise the number of years since the Naqba.

Several hundred protesters assembled near Ofer prison outside Ramallah to demand the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

And hundreds of people marched in Gaza carrying Palestinian flags and banners demanding the right for refugees to return to their former homes, lost to them during the exodus of 700,000 Palestinians at Israel’s foundation.

Many of the refugees and their descendants still live in the West Bank, in Gaza and in horrific conditions in camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

More than five million Palestinians are registered with the UN as refugees.

“On this 66th anniversary of the Nakba we hope that this year will be the one in which our long suffering ends,” President Mahmoud Abbas said.

“It is time for Israel’s leaders to understand there is no other homeland for the Palestinians but Palestine and it is here we are staying.