Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank today amid a new descent into violence.

The two, who Palestinians claimed were detained while ploughing a field of olive trees near Nablus, were shot several times. Palestinian officials said both were 17. The Israeli military said they had tried to stab a soldier.

The deaths bring to five the number of people killed in the region in the past week.

As the violence placed further strain on US efforts to get peace talks under way, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said he would be meeting Barack Obama in the US on Tuesday.

Netanyahu's visit comes at a time of heightened tensions between Israel and the US over a controversial Jewish housing project in east Jerusalem. The project embarrassed Washington because it was announced while the vice-president, Joe Biden, was in Jerusalem to kickstart Israeli-Palestinian talks.