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Killing of Muhammad al-Durrah

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Muhammed al-Durrah was a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy killed by gunfire on September 30, 2000 at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. A French television crew (France 2) near Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip filmed the boy clutching his father as his father tried to shield him from bullets.

Incident

Jamal and Muhammad al-Durrah prior to being shot; Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip; September 30, 2000 (France 2)
Jamal and Muhammad al-Durrah under fire; Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip; September 30, 2000 (France 2)
Jamal and Muhammad al-Durrah after being shot; Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip; September 30, 2000 (France 2)

Muhammad al-Durrah left home that morning to accompany his father, Jamal al-Durrah, on a day's outing to shop for a car. On the return trip home, the father and son crossed a main street in the Bureij refugee camp when heavy shooting broke out between Palestinian militiamen and an Israel Defense Force (IDF) outpost near Netzarim junction. Muhammad and Jamal al-Durrah sought sanctuary in vain between a concrete cylinder and a low cinderblock wall as bullets rained down around them for about 45 minutes, of which several minutes were filmed.

"He stayed close to me, clutching me from my back while I was trying to keep him away from the bullets," said his father. "But one bullet hit him in the leg. I started screaming and crying, hoping that the bullets would stop, but to no avail."

Edited television footage showed Jamal al-Durrah waving desperately, shouting, "Don't shoot!" but Muhammad was eventually hit by four bullets and collapsed in his father's arms. Jamal al-Durrah was also shot and suffered critical injuries but survived after receiving emergency surgery in Jordan. He suffered a permanently paralyzed right arm.

"It is the worst nightmare of my life... My son was terrified, he pleaded with me: 'For the love of God protect me, Baba (Dad).'

"I will never forget these words."

An ambulance driver who tried to reach the trapped pair was shot and killed by IDF soldiers. A second ambulance driver was wounded.

Reaction

The killing was captured on film by a France 2 cameraman, and an edited version of the raw footage was repeatedly broadcast on Palestinian television and around the world. Israeli forces were accused of killing the boy and Muhammad al-Durrah's death quickly became a rallying symbol of resistance and rage against Israel.

"My son didn't die in vain," said Muhammad's mother, Amal. "This was his sacrifice for our homeland, for Palestine."

The IDF initially admitted that it was "probably responsible" for killing Muhammad al-Durrah and expressed sorrow at his death. IDF operations chief Giora Eiland announced that a preliminary investigation revealed that "the shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the outpost at Netzarim".

On October 7 2001, al Qaida spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith warned President Bush that he "must not forget the video footage of Muhammad al-Durrah" and promised that violence against the United States would continue until, among other things, the country ended its assistance "to the Jews in Palestine."

Controversy

An IDF inquiry released November 27, 2000, reached different conclusions than the initial IDF declaration of probable guilt. IDF Southern Commander Major General Yom Tov Samia stated, "A comprehensive investigation conducted in the last weeks casts serious doubt that the boy was hit by Israeli fire," he said. "It is quite plausible that the boy was hit by Palestinian bullets in the course of the exchange of fire that took place in the area." A documentary by German ARD Television based on the IDF findings repeated the conclusion that al-Durrah could not have been killed by gunfire from the Israeli outpost[1].

James Fallows, in The Atlantic Monthly (June 2003) cited a number of unanswered questions raised by the Israeli physicist Nahum Shahaf during the second IDF investigation:

"Why is there no footage of the boy after he was shot? Why does he appear to move in his father's lap, and to clasp a hand over his eyes after he is supposedly dead? Why is one Palestinian policeman wearing a Secret Service-style earpiece in one ear? Why is another Palestinian man shown waving his arms and yelling at others, as if 'directing' a dramatic scene? Why does the funeral appear — based on the length of shadows — to have occurred before the apparent time of the shooting? Why is there no blood on the father's shirt just after they are shot? Why did a voice that seems to be that of the France 2 cameraman yell, in Arabic, 'The boy is dead' before he had been hit? Why do ambulances appear instantly for seemingly everyone else and not for al-Dura?" [2]

These questions have led some to conclude that the whole incident was staged: Yosef Duriel, Shahaf's partner in the IDF investigation, believed that al-Durrah had been killed by Palestinian gunmen collaborating with the French camera crew and the boy's father, with the intent of fabricating an anti-Israel propaganda symbol. Duriel was immediately removed from the investigation after expounding this thesis in an interview with 60 Minutes but he continued to aver that his version was accurate and that the IDF refused to publicize it because the results were "explosive". (Anat Cygielman, Haaretz, November 7 2000)

Though the IDF did not support Duriel's thesis, right-wing supporters of Israel such as WorldNetDaily continued to propound it [3]. The French author Gérard Huber made a similar argument—that al-Durrah's death was staged—but went further, claiming that the boy had not even been killed.

Amnesty International claims that gunfire from the Palestinian outpost stopped 45 minutes before Muhammad al-Durrah was shot. Palestinians note that no Israeli soldiers were charged with any wrongdoing and generally view claims of Palestinian responsibility for Muhammad al-Durrah's death as an attempt to cover-up an Israeli military atrocity.

On October 22, 2004, the Metula News Agency, after reviewing the complete video of the scene, repeated the claim that the incident had been staged. [4]

See Also

Further reading

  • Gérard Huber: Contre-expertise d'une mise en scène; Editions Raphael, 2003 (ISBN 2877810666) -- French book arguing that al-Durrah was never killed
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