RAMALLAH, Israeli soldiers killing a 45-year-old man in cold blood and at point blank near Ramallah yesterday was highlighted on the front page of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida daily headline said: “The occupation executes a citizen near Silwad, east of Ramallah,” while the headline in al-Ayyam daily said: “This is how the soldiers at the checkpoint executed Ahmad Kahleh.”

The third daily, al-Quds, said in the headline: “A martyr from Ramon near Silwad.”

The papers quoted eyewitnesses saying that soldiers at a flying checkpoint at the entrance to Silwad forced Kahleh to get out of his car and after a quarrel with him, shot him twice in the neck killing him.

Kahleh was going with his son to a nearby town for work when he stopped at the checkpoint. The soldiers threw a stun grenade at his car and entered into an altercation with Kahleh before shooting him at point blank, according to the son, Qusai, 18, who was sprayed with pepper in the face by the soldiers and held for a while before he was released, as reported by al-Ayyam daily.

The dailies also reported on the Israeli army raids of several West Bank towns yesterday and the arrest of many Palestinians.

Al-Ayyam said settlers fenced land in the Jordan Valley to take it over.

Al-Quds said a settler ran over a child east of Qalqilya and that the army informed the family of Mohammad Souf, who was killed by its forces in November following an attack, of the intention to demolish their three-story house in the town of Haris, west of the northern West Bank city of Salfit.

The three dailies said President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Egypt at the invitation of his Egyptian counterpart for a three-way meeting today with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted the Chinese foreign minister saying that the historic injustice of the Palestinians should not continue indefinitely.

Al-Quds quoted the Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, saying that Israel imposed measures that paralyzed the health sector in the Gaza Strip and that it controls the suffering of the ill until they die.

It also printed a report by the Chinese news agency quoting Palestinian observers saying that the measures by the new Israeli government will lead to an explosion in the West Bank.

Source: Palestine News & Info Agency