May 21, 2013
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Description
The Muhammad al-Durrah incident took place in the Gaza Strip on September 30, 2000, on the second day of the Second Intifada, amid widespread rioting throughout the Palestinian territories. Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son, Muhammad, were filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2, as they sought cover behind a concrete cylinder after being caught in crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian security forces. The footage, which lasts just over a minute, shows the pair holding onto each other, the boy crying and the father waving, then a burst of gunfire and dust, after which the boy is seen slumped across his father's legs.
Fifty-nine seconds of the footage were initially broadcast in France with a voiceover from Charles Enderlin, France 2's bureau chief in Israel, who did not witness the incident himself but got all information by phone from the cameraman, telling viewers that the al-Durrahs had been the "target of fire from the Israeli positions," and that the boy had died. After an emotional public funeral, Muhammad was hailed throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds as a martyr.
The Israel Defense Forces accepted responsibility at first and Israel initially apologized for the boy's death but issued a retraction when an investigation indicated the IDF probably did not shoot the al-Durrahs and the boy was most likely killed by Palestinian fire. Three senior French journalists who saw the raw footage in 2004 said it was not clear from the footage alone that the boy had died, and that France 2 cut a final few seconds in which he appeared to lift his hand from his face. France 2's news editor said in 2005 that no one could say for sure who fired the shots, but other commentators, including the director of the Israeli government press office, went further, saying the scene had been staged by Palestinian protesters. Philippe Karsenty, a French media commentator, was sued for libel by France 2 for suggesting this; a ruling against him was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal in May 2008 who agreed that some scenes did not seem genuine and that he had presented a "coherent mass of evidence". The court also found that the Palestinian cameraman for France 2, the network's main witness, was not "perfectly credible." France 2 has appealed the decision.
(via Freebase)
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