Mohammed Al-Dura The Hoax That Won't Go Away

Nine years ago when France 2 and Charles Enderlin sent around the world their fake story about Muhammad al Dura,  the video of the staged death of a little boy became the rallying cry of Islamofacist terrorist all around the world. Instead of investigating the story, the Mainstream media became the biggest supporters of the hoax, and became accomplices this deadly fraud.

Philippe Karsenty a Jewish activist Identified the al Dura video as a hoax and was sued by the TV Station and reporter. Last May a French Court of Appeals found in favor of Jewish activist Philippe Karsenty, overturning a lower court decision that he had libeled France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin when he accused them of knowingly misleading the world about the death of the Palestinian child Mohammed al-Dura in the Gaza Strip in 2000. 


But the Story doesn't end there. There was a boy killed that day, after all, the Palestinians marched a dead child to final resting place, and the medical pictures of a boy who looked a lot like al-Dura? Was that Mohammed Al-Dura?

New Footage discovered by German Film makers Esther Schapira and Georg Hafner have been included in a documentary they created (in German). It seeks to answer some of those unanswered questions about the French Hoax that "launched a thousand homicide bombers"

Following years of controversy, video evidence presented in a new German documentary suggests that Mohammed Al-Dura may in fact have been killed after all. One might have thought that the discovery of the footage by filmmakers Esther Schapira and Georg Hafner would come as good news for France 2. The beleaguered French broadcaster has attempted to turn the tables on its critics: implausibly demanding that they provide evidence that Mohammed Al-Dura is still alive, when the real issue was obviously that France 2 had no evidence that he had been killed. Here, finally, was some evidence. But, in fact, far from vindicating France 2, the investigations of Schapira and Hafner render the so-called “Al-Dura affair” even more mysterious and troubling than it has already been.

...Last May, however, an appeals court overturned the lower court’s judgment, finding that Karsenty had legitimate grounds for doubting the authenticity of the report. The key evidence presented at the second trial consisted of raw footage or “rushes” shot by Abu Rahma at Netzarim Junction on the day of the incident. Not only did the rushes contain numerous scenes of Palestinian youngsters apparently feigning being wounded. As it turned out, virtually the only additional footage of the Al-Dura episode shows the boy lifting his hand from his eyes, surveying the scene in front of him, and then turning slowly onto his stomach – all of this after the point at which he had been pronounced dead by Enderlin in the original France 2 report. (It should be noted that this footage was already included with footage furnished by France 2 to other broadcasters at the time of the incident. It was not, however, included in France 2’s own report.) All told, France 2 provided only about a minute of footage of Mohammed Al-Dura to the court. The footage consists of a series of five short discontinuous shots. In the final ten-second shot in the sequence, the “boy-martyr” is clearly alive.

..it seemed that those ten seconds were the last images that existed of the boy. Now, however, there appear to be several seconds more. The footage is included in Schapira’s and Hafner’s documentary “The Child, Death and the Truth” [Das Kind, der Tod und die Wahrheit], which was first broadcast on Germany’s ARD public television on March 4. That footage can be seen in the video below beginning  at the 5:11 mark. The boy in the additional footage is receiving CPR. He resembles the boy in the France 2 footage and is also dressed similarly. (if you cannot see video below click here)

The additional images are especially troubling, because Schapira’s and Hafner’s documentary in fact confirms and reinforces many of the elements that have been adduced by critics over the years for concluding that the original France 2 report was bogus. For example, on the very day of the episode at Netzarim, Mohammed Al-Dura was supposedly buried. The funeral procession was filmed and one can see the face of the boy whose body is being carried to the grave. Photos also exist of the corpse of what appears to be the same boy with a large wound extending from his stomach to his chest. The pictures were taken at Shifa hospital in Gaza. Schapira and Hafner, however, interview a specialist in biometrics who confirms that the facial features of the boy in question do not match those of the boy in the France 2 footage.

Similarly, Mohammed Al-Dura’s father Jamal was supposedly struck by some twelve bullets during the Netzarim incident. In 2004, France 2 would film Jamal Al-Dura displaying his numerous scars. France 2 officials have cited the scars as “proof” of the authenticity of the Al-Dura episode. Schapira and Hafner, however, interview the Israeli surgeon Dr. Yehuda David, who confirms (as he has previously told Israeli media) that the scars displayed by Jamal Al-Dura are in fact the result of an earlier incident. Dr. David himself performed surgery on Jamal in 1994 in an effort to restore mobility to Jamal’s right arm. The arm injury and other injuries were the result of an attack with knives and axes that occurred in 1992. The attack was apparently perpetrated by Palestinian militants. As Schapira and Hafner note, it bears all the hallmarks of the sort of punishment that the militants regularly inflict upon suspected “collaborators.”


Schapira and Hafner likewise point to the scarce evidence of blood in the France 2 footage and the apparent presence of a red cloth in one of the boy’s hands, perhaps to simulate blood. They also show images filmed by France 2 the next day at the site of the supposed shooting incident. No blood is visible at the site.

But if the France 2 footage was indeed staged and the boy was not shot during the Netzarim incident, then what is the significance of the additional footage that apparently shows the boy wounded?  Esther Schapira explained that the footage comes from Palestinian sources. The stomach area, from which the boy appears to be bleeding, has been artificially obscured in the images. According to Schapira, this was already the case when ARD obtained the footage. Schapira remarked that she finds this “strange,” since Palestinian media “usually are not so squeamish about showing people who are wounded or dead.”

....But those familiar with the case would be surprised by just how delicately Schapira and Hafner treat their France 2 colleagues in the film. At one point, the narration even states that “no one (sic) doubts the integrity” of Charles Enderlin. The remark concerns a man who for years insisted that he had cut a scene of Mohammad Al-Dura’s “death throes” from the France 2 report out of considerations of decency. The rushes provided to the court contain no such scene. The only scene that we know that France 2 did in fact cut was precisely the one showing that the boy was still alive.

Source WHO REALLY SHOT AL-DURA? THE NEWEST EVIDENCE

The only thing we know for sure is that if Mohammed Al-Dura died that day, we know that it was not by the hands of the Israelis and not during the incident aired by France 2 and Hoax-meister Charles Enderlin. The location of the alleged shooting rules out the fatal gunfire originating from the Israeli military post at Netzarim. And the fact that the boy was alive and well at the end of the video shoot and there was no blood at the scene indicates that if harm did come to Mohammed Al-Dura it happed at a differerent time and a different place. As longs as there are still questons about what happened at Netzarim, this will continue to be the hoax that won't go away.