I saw the bodies, killed by a shot to the head: Israeli killings: Troops stormed Arafat's men's base - and Palestinians believe that what followed was an execution

The ambulancemen were carrying the first body out of the Cairo-Amman bank in the centre of Ramallah when I came across them.
His knees were doubled up in rigor mortis. One of the legs of his green parachute jumpsuit had been burnt through to the skin by a round fired at such close quarters that the muzzle flash had ignited the fabric. A gaping wound was visible in his chest - also, apparently, from a burst of fire from close range. What killed him, however, was the gunshot to his temple.

A few minutes later, the paramedics brought the second body, that of a young man, also in Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit, Force 17.

Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue socks. The wounds that he had obviously been clutching when he died were also to his upper body. But what must have killed him, like his colleague, was a shot fired at close range to his temple that had demolished the back of his head.

The third body was of an older man, perhaps in his forties, grey-haired and with a full moustache. Someone had pulled his parachute suit up above his head to hide the wound. But when the stretcher-bearers put him down, the covering was pulled back. The wound was also to the head.