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Report: 12-year-old Palestinian boy's martyrdom 'staged' Evidences by Masada2000.org Article From Israel National News Article From Eretz Yisroel What Really Happened When Muhamad Al-durah, the 12 Year-old Was Shot Dead The Killing of a 12 Year Old Child: Another Perspective The Investigation: Mohammad a-Dura was Probably not Killed by Israeli Fire

WorldNetDaily.com
March 5, 2003

The "martyrdom" death of 12-year-old Palestinian Mohammed al-Dura at the hands of Israeli soldiers - which received widespread international news coverage and spurred on the current intifada, inspiring countless "suicide bombers" to attack Israel - was actually a "staged" piece of street theater, according to an in-depth report in the current issue of WND's monthly magazine, Whistleblower.

The entire world was transfixed as news broadcasts played the sensational video footage of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy and his father, pinned down in crossfire between Arab snipers and Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza's remote Netzarim junction on Sept. 30, 2000. The image of the boy crouching in terror behind his father, both of them struggling in vain to protect themselves from Israeli gunfire, only to be shot - the boy apparently dying in his father's arms - became immortalized in posters that were later plastered up and down the streets of the West Bank and Gaza.

Although the Israeli military initially assumed responsibility for the incident, it soon became apparent that the IDF could not have shot the boy, due to a large barrier between the Israeli military outpost across the remote junction and the location of the boy and his father.

Now, a just-completed, long-term journalistic investigation conducted in France concludes that the Mohammed al-Dura affair was actually a piece of Palestinian theater - similar to the dramatic Palestinian funeral processions last April after the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. During that public spectacle, a martyred "corpse" twice fell off the stretcher, only to hop back up and retake his place in the procession. The Palestinians had claimed 3,000 deaths in Jenin - the actual toll was 52.

The groundbreaking investigation and its conclusions are spelled out in "Contre-expertise d'une mise en scˆne" published by _ditions Rapha‹l, and translated into English for Whistleblower by Nidra Poller. In the book, G‰rard Huber, a psychoanalyst and permanent Paris correspondent of the Israel-based Metula News Agency, reports on the investigation conducted by a team of journalists, including Huber and St‰phane Juffa, Metula's editor in chief.

"What really happened at Netzarim junction?" asks Huber. "One thing is certain: Given the position of the protagonists during the firefight it is impossible that the child was hit by Israeli bullets. Mohammed al-Dura was not killed by Israelis. And the bigger question remains: Was Mohammed really killed?"

Street theater

Whistleblower cites stunning reports of Palestinians playing to the camera, including Israeli commentator Amnon Lord's account of the larger scene at Netzarim Junction when al-Dura was supposedly shot to death. He describes "incongruous battle scenes complete with wounded combatants and screeching ambulances played out in front of an audience of laughing onlookers, while makeshift movie directors do retakes of botched scenes."

Palestinian journalist Sami El Soudi echoes Lord's observation, who discloses that "Almost all Palestinian directors take part more or less voluntarily in these war commissions, under the official pretext that we should use all possible means, including trickery and fabulation, to fight against the tanks and airplanes the enemy has and we don't. . Our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed. Most of the cameramen there were Palestinians. . They willingly took part in the masquerade, filming fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was well done the onlookers laughed and applauded."

"It is incredible," says Huber, "how many people were calmly filming the battle of Netzarim on September 30th, 2000. Not only professionals - some of them standing no more than ten meters away from the al-Dura incident - but amateurs as well.

"The rushes [video clips] are full of surprising incongruities: Children smile as ambulances go by. A 'wounded' Palestinian collapses and two seconds later an ambulance pulls up to take him to the hospital. It looks as if the driver had been cued in, knew in advance where the Palestinian was going to fall, or was waiting in the upper right hand corner just out of the photographic field ready to zoom in on signal (there is a scene like this in the France 2 report.)

"In another rush we are startled to hear a Palestinian shouting: 'It's a flop! We have to do the whole thing over again!'"

The French close ranks

Even more disconcerting, says the Whistleblower report, is the fact that France 2, the news organization that broke the story of Mohammed al-Dura's supposed "martyrdom" at the hands of Israeli soldiers, adamantly refuses to release all the raw footage taken by its Palestinian cameraman. For instance, journalist Charles Enderlin, who narrated the original story of the shooting, claims his employer, France 2, holds onto images of the child's death throes - which he says he took out of his report for ethical reasons - because they were just too terrible to view.

To this day, says Huber, it remains unproven whether Mohammed al-Dura is dead or alive.

Meanwhile, every French television station to this day refuses to broadcast a film by German director Esther Schapira, titled "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Mohammed al-Dura?" Nominated for best TV documentary in Germany, it also concludes Israelis did not kill the boy. Although she understands why the Palestinians are not interested in further investigation, Schapira, a staff filmmaker for German public television, wonders why the West should be so resistant to a solid, impartial investigation.

And French author and Whistleblower translator Nidra Poller asks some probing questions about the French media's behavior:

"Of course the Palestinians won't allow any investigation on the evidence they hold," Poller tells Whistleblower. "However, France 2 is not the Palestinians. It is a public service TV station in a democratic country. And Huber makes a convincing case for the collusion of France 2 in this stunt.

"How is it possible that France 2 refuses to cooperate with the investigation? If they have nothing to hide, wouldn't it be to their interest to come forth, even partially? Would the American media sit back and allow this kind of enormous question to remain in the box? If CNN cheats, does Fox News back them up? Well, that's what happens in France."

"The truth," says Huber in the Whistleblower report, "is, first of all, that the child shown on the screen is not dead. He plays dead."

But what about Mohammed al-Dura's funeral?

"The badly wounded corpse of a child was shown by doctors at the Shifa hospital in Gaza," says Huber. "[That] child was dead, but he is not the child seen in the famous TV newscast."

The sensational 5,000-word report by WND Managing Editor David Kupelian, titled "Mohammed al-Dura martyrdom a media myth?" is published in the March edition of Whistleblower.

Evidences by Masada2000.org

   On October 6, 2000 twelve year old Mohammed al-Dura became the unwitting "Poster Child," rallying call and virtual symbol of the 2000 Palestinian Intifada. "Little Mo" was not in the streets throwing rocks, iron pipes or Molotov Cocktails at the Israeli troops. He and his father, Jamal, were simply caught in the crossfire. Or were they?

   Immediately after young Mo's life was cut short, the IDF apologized for the completely accidental shooting of the young boy. They did not see Mo and his father behind the giant barrel nor would the Israeli Defense Force's own rules of engagement allow soldiers to intentionally fire upon innocent bystanders. They acknowledged guilt for never in their collective minds would any one of them have imagined a scenario whereby Mohammed al-Dura might have been murdered by his own people... a cruel plot staged and executed by Palestinian sharp-shooters and a television cameraman!

Anyone who understands ballistics knows that a bullet striking an object directly at a 90 degrees angle [Above Left] leaves a nearly round entrance hole. A bullet striking that same object from an angle other than 09 degrees may penetrate slightly but will become deflected, leaving an irregular and scattered outline. [Above Right]

Now look at the bullet holes [Above Photo] that penetrated the wall behind Mohammed and his father, Jamal al-Dura. These are clean and full holes! There is no indication of ANY lateral deflection once these bullets struck the wall. They were fired from a direction behind or very slightly to the left or right of the cameraman. We seriously doubt that Israeli soldiers were behind the cameraman!

Mohammed al-Dura's body was buried before an autopsy could be performed or before any Commission of Inquiry could be set up. Soon after being brought to a Jordanian hospital, Jamal al-Dura gave his first television interview. He said emphatically that his son had been "shot in the back!" When he learned that there were no Israeli troops firing BEHIND his son, he became indignant and replied, "Everybody knows the truth. The bullets of the Zionists are the bullets that killed my son!" Apparently the thought of his son enjoying endless sex with Heavenly Virgins (as guaranteed by the Koran for all martyrs) AND the $2000 bonus (provided by the Palestinian Authority for all children who are martyred) has somewhat clouded Jamal's objectivity!

And, speaking of objectivity, the cameraman's motives also come into question. The cameraman who took this amazing video works for France 2 Television. You might say, "Why would a Frenchman have an interest protecting Palestinian gunmen who murdered Mohammed?" Well, THIS cameraman may work for French television but his name sure ain't "Pierre!" It is Mr. Talal Abu Rahma. And, yes, he is a Palestinian! Talk about a coincidence! If Talal Abu Rahma were to tell the truth, he would be sent to the back lines for the the remainder of the conflict. He could also end up like Mohammed al-Dura with a few slugs in his gut!

SOURCE:

Masada2000.org

Article From Israel National News

An IDF investigation and re-enactment appears to show conclusively that the 12-year-old boy from Gaza, Muhammad al-Dura, was not shot by Israeli soldiers - but was rather the victim of a cruel plot staged by Palestinian sharp-shooters and a Palestinian television cameraman.

BULLETS FIRED FROM THE DIRECTION OF THE CAMERA PALESTINIAN MILITARY FORCES EXAMINE THE SCENE

The incident in question occurred on Oct. 6, when the boy and his father happened to be walking past the scene of a major battle between Palestinian snipers and Israeli soldiers. Former IDF sniper Yosef Doriel, who initiated the re-enactment, said that he had several reasons to suspect that it was not the Israelis who shot the boy. "For one thing, the boy and his father were hiding behind and to the left of a barrel that was between them and the Israeli forces," he told Arutz-7 today. "In the video clip, you see four clean bullet holes to the side of them. These were not shot by the Israelis - they are 'clean' and full holes, not mere grazes that would have been formed by the 30-degree angle of the Israelis - but rather by Palestinians (stationed more directly in front of the father and son) to make sure that the two would stay put. Suddenly, you see the boy lying down in his father's lap, with another bullet hole in the wall directly behind him - again, it could not have come from the IDF position, which was behind the barrel and to the side, but only from the Palestinian position, which was more directly in front of the father and son... At that point in the video, you can hear the firing - but the Israeli position was far away! Rather, what happened was that a Palestinian advanced to a spot very close to the photographer, and shot the fatal shot. You can also notice that at that moment of the fatal shots, the photographer suddenly 'shook' and the picture was blurred - a signal that the shots came from close to him."

SOURCE:

Israel National News

Article From Eretz Yisroel

According to analysis, any shots coming from an angle of 110m and 30 degrees would be deflected by the cement barrel and block placed on it. In the diagram to the left you can see that the cement barrel fully protected both the father and the son. This means the Israeli position had no visibility to the either the boy or his father's position, and could not have fired the shots.

The four large bullet holes were fired from an automatic weapon. Because the holes climb the wall and go to the right, we can assume that the gunman was left handed. The weapon was also fired from across the street, either next to the Palestinian cameraman's location or in bushes at the back of the cameraman. Had the bullets been fired from the Israeli position far to the right, the holes in the concrete would have an elliptical shape that fans out in the opposite direction from where the shot was fired.

The killing bullet-hole could be caused only by a sniper facing the boy from the front (behind the bushes at the back of the cameraman), and the noise recorded by the cameraman before the boy was seen dead was of a very near-by weapon, with a sound quite different from the shooting heard before, from distanced Israeli outposts.

If Jamal was shouting "Don't shoot" in the direction of the gunman, it would appear that the sniper would not have been in the bushes behind the camera man, rather he would have been next the cameraman on his right side (Jamal is looking slightly to the right of the camera), possibly explaining.the camera shift first to the right and then compensate to the left, based on motion artifacts in the video and the strength of the noise of the gunshot. If the noise had been from behind him, the camera effects probably would have been different.

The single hole behind the father's arm may or may not have been from the same weapon. The hole was probably not made after it past through the boy. This can be deduced because if the bullet had entered there would be evidence of blood on the wall behind them, and there is no evidence of this in the video photo. It appears that the bullet hit the wall and expelled a large quantity of cement rubble in the reverse direction. The Palestinian cameraman mentions the area was "filled with debris dust". Because the father was pressing his son down and behind him, the boy was particularly vulnerable to this ricochet material. It was probably this debris that killed Muhammed and wounded his father. When the camera shook, Jamal falls foward, and the final picture shows blood splattered away from the wall.

It appears that the shot was aimed at specifically at the boy, as Jamal's hand was shielding him. Why is the father leaving his son in such a dangerous position? Most fathers would have put the boy between them and the concrete. It must be that Jamal did not expect danger from the Palestinians, vans and trucks across the street.

In the Australian 60 Minutes Interview with Talal Abu Rahma, Richard Carleton suddenly said to Rahma, regarding what happened at Netzarim, and the shooting, "It was Murder, wasn't it" Rahma was visibly startled, and stammered a non committal response.

SOURCE:

Eretz Yisroel

What Really Happened When Muchmud Al-durah

The Jerusalem weekly, Kol Ha'zman, published in its Oct. 6 issue an interview with Talal Abu Rachmah, the TV photographer who filmed the death of Muchmud Al-dirah, the 12 year-old child shot dead at Netzarim Junction on the third day of Arab rioting. This is what he said:

"I was in my Gaza City office when we received notice that there was shooting at Netzarim Junction...when I arrived there was already heavy shooting...the shots came from all over, heavy shooting from every direction, many shots from automatic weapons. It was terrible and I was forced to take cover inside the van...the shooting intensified and then, for the first time, some 15 meters in front of me, I saw the Reuters photojournalist hiding there and next to him, a man and a child...after a few minutes, the photojournalist managed to get out and the father and son crouched and compressed themselves between the low block wall and a large metal barrel. I heard him shouting and waving his hands in the direction of the shots...he continued shouting but wasn't heard. Maybe he was trying to attract attention that they would know that he was there with the child...I thought that if I would move [in the direction of Al-dirah & son] then I would endanger the lives of the four other people with me.

Until that moment, it was clear to me that the [Israeli] soldiers did not notice that someone was hiding there...afterwards, I saw that he took out a mobile phone and spoke to someone, but he wasn't successful in conversing and then he took a bullet in the hand...an ambulance pulled up...and the soldiers continued shooting. The driver was hit and was killed. This lasted for a long time and then there was quiet for a few seconds and then, 'boom', I heard another sound, different, louder than what I heard previously. The area where they were taking cover filled with debris dust, we didn't see a thing and when it disspated, I saw that the child who was all the time close to his father, was lying on the ground, his face in the earth".

SOURCE:

Israel Behind the News

The Killing of a 12 Year Old Child: Another Perspective

by Gal Luft ¹

On Sept. 30, 2000, the news agency Agence France Presse had a cameraman filming during an exchange of gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen/rioters. The cameraman focused in tightly on a father and son who were trapped behind a piece of concrete and the camera caught the gunshots which eventually killed the boy and wounded the father.

This film has been shown over and over again and used as a demonstration of the heartlessness and cruelty of the Israeli soldiers who were said to have fired the killing shots. But neither Agence France Presse nor any other news agency or medium has bothered to explain or show the context in which that shooting took place. So an enterprising person who isn't as automatically anti-Israel as Agence France Presse appears to be (not to mention all the other news outlets -- both television and print -- which showed this event without any explanation or context), obtained a broader view of the scene of that shooting and has made it available to anyone whose mind isn't already closed. It's attached to this email and bears a close look.

If you do that what you'll see is that the scene is a highway junction in the middle of wide open fields, near a Jewish town which was the target of a band of Palestinians, and an Israeli military outpost stationed on that road -- in the lower right hand corner of the picture. Directly to the north and south of the Israelis are two Palestinian locations from which shots were being fired at the Israelis, and diagonally across the intersection from the Israelis is another Palestinian position from which shots were fired at the Israelis.

In other words, the Israeli position, designed to guard the road into the Jewish town, was surrounded and being fired upon from three sides by Palestinian gunmen. For reasons which none of the media has thought worth exploring, the unfortunate father and son are caught in the line of fire between the Israelis and the Palestinians across the intersection. However, the Israelis cannot see the father and son because they're crouched behind the concrete protection right alongside the Palestinian firing position.

Once you've absorbed the physical situation, a couple of questions have to be asked:

1) Since there are no Palestinian homes or towns in the area, what were the father and son doing there to begin with? There are no stores there. No playgrounds. Nothing.

2) Why didn't the Palestinian gunmen, who were right next to the father and son and who had to be aware of their presence, do anything to protect them or at least signal to the Israelis that there were innocent civilians caught in the crossfire?

The answers to these questions are frightening. The Palestinian father and son were undoubtedly there as part of the original confrontation with the Israelis. The Palestinians use children routinely because a) the Israelis are reluctant to shoot when they know kids are there and if the kids get killed, it makes fabulous anti-Israel propaganda -- witness the use to which this incident has been put already. To give you an idea of what I mean, read this short article from the Jerusalem Post of October 6, 2000:

IDF: Palestinians offer $2,000 for 'martyrs' By Margot Dudkevitch HEBRON (October 6) - The IDF Hebron area commander Col. Noam Tivon suggested yesterday that the Palestinian Authority is encouraging children to participate in clashes with the IDF by offering their families $300 per injury and $2,000 for anyone killed. The main goal of the Tanzim, or Fatah militia activists, is to continue perpetrating attacks, to kill soldiers and settlers, he said. He noted the cynical use by Palestinians of their children, who are pushed to the forefront of the clashes. Senior IDF commanders met with Palestinians security officials on Wednesday night and yesterday morning in an attempt to quell the violence.

Tivon also met with his Palestinian counterpart yesterday morning. He said that "the meeting took place after a night of severe, intense fighting, with armed Tanzim later joined by armed Palestinian policemen who perpetrated scores of shooting attacks, firing at the buildings of the Jewish community and IDF soldiers. It is about time that the public understand that the Tanzim are directly linked to PA Chairman Yasser Arafat - he is the only one that can control the situation." Tivon said it was up to Arafat to issue clearcut orders to his security forces and armed Fatah activists.

From the numerous meetings with Palestinian preventive security officials he has conducted in the past week, it is clear they have no control over the situation and the Tanzim, Tivon said.

"It's a game - one hand operates the Tanzim, the bad guys, and the other hand the security services. But both hands are held up by the same body and head. The Palestinian security officials are fully aware that they have no control and are facing a difficult situation, but without a doubt everything is orchestrated by Arafat."

He said the soldiers have acted with the utmost restraint and have not initiated any shooting attacks or violence.

So that's the context in which you have to understand not only the death of this child, but the participation of all of the kids you see in the news every day.

These kids are taught in school that the best thing that can happen to them is to die as martyrs for the Palestinian cause while killing or attacking Jews. The hatred is so deep and pathological that the possibility of a real peace process with these people right now will one day in the future be thought by historians and psychologists to have been an interesting case of mass self-delusion.

Sadly, there are still many Jews, and a whole lot of others in the media (whose motives may be neither delusional or objective), who continue to insist on the need to run after the Arabs and beg them to sit down, talk and make peace. Their continuing blindness or anti-Israel hostility (take your pick) will surely result in even more deaths and disaster as the Arabs milk this cynical tactic for all it's worth while their politically correct and anti-Israel friends and allies cheer them on and attack the Israelis for defending themselves. Watch it with this in mind and I'll bet it will all look different to you from now on.

* The writer, a senior IDF research official, is a senior research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Policy Studies.

SOURCE:

Israel Behind the News

The Investigation: Mohammad a-Dura was Probably not Killed by Israeli Fire

Samya presents the results of the investigation. Palestinians shot the boy in the back.

The general of the Southern Command, Yomtov Samya, handed in the results received upon investigating the details of the child Mohamed a-Dura's death, who has become a symbol of the new intifada. According to the report the child was probably killed by Palestinian gunfire. "The possibility that the child and his father were killed by IDF soldiers is unlikely". As a result of the investigation the real possibility arises that the child was killed by Palestinian fire during an exchange of fire near the Netzarim Junction. General Samya presented the results of the investigation today (Monday) at a press conference that he held in Tel Aviv.

"The child was killed by a burst of fire and the IDF sniper fired individual shots".

The investigation shows that the place the child was killed in was in the sniper's range of fire, but the sniper fired single shots while the television's pictures show that the boy was killed by a burst of fire. Looking into the details of the case shows that the facts support the theory. First of all, the area behind the barrel, where the incident took place, was amply protected to save both father and child. Secondly, the holes created in the wall showed that the angle of fire was off by six degrees had the shots come from an IDF soldier, but matched perfectly had the shots been fired from a Palestinian position. General Samya emphasized that when the media interviewed the father, Jamal a-Dura, he claimed that his son was shot in the back and in other interviews said that his child's innards were spilled onto the pavement. This is yet another proof that the general brought to prove that the shots came from behind, where the Palestinian policemen were firing from.

General Samya showed surprise at the child's presence at the sight of the shooting.

At the end of the presentation General Samya raised a number of unanswered questions which resulted in a cry of protest from several foreign correspondents. This also brought about an argument between the head of the French channel's Israel office, Cheryl Andrelin, and General Samya.

The general claimed that his request to receive the full forty -minute video of the incident was turned down, but rather the army received the shortened version, which was three minutes in length. Still, noted the general, there is no reason to assume that the French television network behaved in a biased or unethical fashion. Andrelin, who attended the press conference, said that he sent the video to the army and that the breaks in the film were created by the camera being shut off and not as a result of selective editing. He added that the Palestinian videographer who filmed the incident had been working for the network twelve years and is sure that the man behaved professionally and can be trusted to have given over the video as it was taken. Later on the general raised a question with regard to the boy being at the junction where the shooting took place. He asked why this father and his son stayed in the area for forty-five minutes though others were leaving. General Samya also wanted to know how is it that Palestinian photographers and policemen, who saw the situation, didn't take steps to evacuate the father and child.

Sources in the Southern Command said they noticed a troubling incident that occurred during the course of the investigation. One of the outside consultants that the IDF used, Yosef Duriel, was interviewed sometime over the course of the investigation. In response General Samya removed him from the investigative team. They claimed that Duriel, who was interviewed after he left the team, breached trust by claiming to be the one who was responsible for the investigation overall. General Samya said that the results of the

investigation were shown to the Chief of Staff, Shaul Mofaz, who signed off on it Friday.

SOURCE:

ynet

Link & Sources:

Doriel Investigation