Israeli army admits Palestinian man killed 'for no reason'

 A Palestinian man - Ahmed Kahla, 46, from Ramon, near Silwad in the occupied West Bank - shot dead by Israeli soldiers on 15 January posed no threat or danger and should not have been killed, the Israeli military admitted on Monday.

Kahla was shot in the neck from close range. The Israeli army initially described him as a terrorist who had tried to carry out an attack. They claimed that the man got out of his car with a knife and ran toward soldiers, intending to stab them.

However, Israeli media said a leaked preliminary report found Kahla was shot dead unnecessarily. A video showed a struggle with soldiers before the father of four was killed.

Kahla's 20-year-old son Qusai, who was with his father at the time, said their car was stopped at the temporary checkpoint and a soldier threw a sound bomb at the car's front windscreen. "My father opened the window and started arguing with the soldier," Qusai recounted, adding when his father asked why they were being attacked, an officer used pepper spray on them.

"They took me away and I could hear fighting and a gunshot. I couldn't see anything. Then after 10 minutes, I heard an ambulance."

The Israeli military, who on 15 January claimed that a Palestinian man had approached soldiers with a knife, later updated its version of events to say that there had been a confrontation and that the man had tried to snatch a weapon from a soldier before he was shot.

The IDF’s Military Police Unit says it is investigating.

The Palestinian Authority has condemned what happened to Kahla as a "heinous crime of execution". In total, Israeli forces have killed 18 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, in the first three weeks of this year.