Two teenagers shot dead on West Bank Palestinian nurses hold posters with the picture of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, a prisoner who died of cancer in an Israeli jail. Israeli troops have shot dead two Palestinian youths during a West Bank clash, heightening tension ahead of the funeral of a prisoner who died in Israel. The clashes, late on Wednesday in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, came after a day of protests across the territory, where a general strike was called after the death on Tuesday of a prisoner in an Israeli jail. Palestinian security officials named the two as Amer Nassar, 16, and Naji Balbisi, 17. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have risen sharply this week. The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike in Gaza late on Tuesday night, its first since a ceasefire that ended eight days of fierce cross-border fighting in November. Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, called the air strikes a clear violation of the ceasefire. The rocket fire from Gaza was the third such violation of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt in November, evidence of its fragility. An Islamic extremist group in Gaza, the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's rocket fire, saying that it was in support of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The group criticised other Palestinian factions for their inaction on the prisoner issue. On Wednesday morning, Gaza militants fired two more rockets into southern Israel. Neither caused injuries. The tensions in the south came amid signs in the north of increasing spillover from Syria's bloody civil war. The Israeli military destroyed a Syrian post on Tuesday night after shots were fired from the Syrian side at an Israeli army jeep in the Israeli-held Golan Heights. Emotions over the prisoner issue have been running high among Palestinians, leading to protests in support of inmates on hunger strikes. New York Times