Israeli troops kill Palestinian in West Bank

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Saturday, hours after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian villagers in the occupied West Bank and an Israeli boy received stab wounds.

Palestinian security officials said the 18-year-old was shot by troops after he and a group of Palestinian youths hurled stones at an army patrol near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

An Israeli army spokesman said troops arrived at an area near the village of T'koa after two American tourists were hurt by rocks thrown at their bus by Palestinians.

The spokesman said the troops used non-lethal means to disperse the Palestinians who rioted at the scene, but said they fired one live bullet. He said the army was investigating the incident.

Hours earlier, dozens of Israeli settlers clashed with residents of a Palestinian village near Nablus in the northern West Bank, where three Palestinians were shot and wounded by the settlers, medical officials said.

The clashes seemed to have been triggered by the stabbing of an Israeli boy. The nine-year-old was attacked by a Palestinian who infiltrated a Jewish settlement outpost and set fire to an abandoned building. The army spokesman said the boy was stabbed after spotting the man and calling for help.

An Israeli hospital official said the boy had suffered light wounds in his back.

Some 500,000 Jews live among 2.5 million Palestinians on West Bank land captured by Israel in a 1967 war, including Arab East Jerusalem.

(Reporting by Atef Saad, Mustafa Abu Ghaniya, and Haitham Tamimi; Writing by Ari Rabinovitch and Avida Landau; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)