ISRAELI troops gunned down two Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank yesterday as a third shot the day before died of his wounds.

Lafi Yusif Awad died after being shot in the stomach near Ramallah, while Hassan Jihad al-Baw was shot through the heart near Hebron.

Issa al-Shalaldah, who was hit by soldiers’ bullets during a protest in Sair on Thursday, died at the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron yesterday.

His relative Abdullah Shalaldah was killed by Israeli troops on Thursday as the raided a Hebron hospital to arrest his brother Azzam, who was being treated for gunshot wounds.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian opened fire on a an Israeli family’s car yesterday, killing a father and his 18-year-old son and wounding at least one other person.

n Former British prime minister Tony Blair announced yesterday that he was launching his own private Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative six months after the end of his entirely unsuccessful tenure as as Middle East peace envoy.