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Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians during a stone-throwing protest on Thursday marking the “Nakba”, the annual commemoration of what Palestinians term the catastrophe of their displacement when Israel was founded.

Hospital officials said Muhammad Abu Thahr, 22, and Nadim Nuwara, 17, were both shot in the heart outside Israel’s Ofer Prison near the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military declined comment, saying border police were involved in the incident. A police spokesman told Reuters he was aware of the protest, but did not have any confirmation that live ammunition was used.

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“The use of live bullets on protesters is a dangerous escalation by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s extremist government which aims to drag the region into a new cycle of violence,” Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior Palestinian official, told Reuters.

Ofer prison has been a focal point of Palestinian anger over Israel’s detention and occupation policies.

Around two hundred demonstrators waved flags and threw stones there, marking the 66th anniversary of the “Nakba,” meaning catastrophe, when many Palestinians fled or were expelled from their towns and villages during the war of Israel’s foundation in 1948.

Protests and violence in the West Bank have declined in recent months, while U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stumbled and finally collapsed in April.

In the most recent deadly incident, three Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces during a raid into the West Bank city of Jenin on March 22.

Palestinians seek an independent state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in a 1967 war.

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