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Summary: Report says video of 12-year-old cowering with his father amid a gun battle shows no evidence he was killed by Israeli fire
[20 May 2013] - A film of a 12-year-old boy crying and cowering beside his father as a gun battle raged around them in Gaza has been challenged by an official Israeli report that suggests that the entire event may have been staged. The images, which became a symbol of the second intifada (uprising), contain no evidence that the child was injured or killed by Israeli fire, a committee of inquiry into television coverage of the death of Muhammad al-Dura concluded. But the committee's conclusions were rejected by France 2, the French public television channel that broadcast the report, its reporter Charles Enderlin, and the boy's father, Jamal al-Dura. All said they were ready to co-operate with an independent international investigation into the incident, and Enderlin and Dura added they were willing to undergo polygraph tests. The image of father and son crouched behind a barrel as bullets flew around them were reproduced as postage stamps and street murals across the Middle East as the Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation took hold. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) initially admitted it had killed Muhammad by accident, but within weeks it changed its account, saying the boy had died as a result of Palestinian gunfire. The 55-second sequence has since become fiercely contested. According to the Israeli government press release that accompanied the report, "the narrative spawned by the France 2 report has served as an inspiration and justification for terrorism, antisemitism, and the delegitimisation of Israel". The committee, set up in 2012 by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to examine the incident "in the light of the continued damage it has caused to Israel", concluded that IDF gunfire was not responsible for the death of Muhammad and injuries to his father. Its 36-page report said France 2's "central claims and accusations had no basis in the material which the station had in its possession at the time … There is no evidence that the IDF was in any way responsible for causing any of the alleged injuries to Jamal or the boy." It based its conclusions on footage filmed but not broadcast by France 2, in which, according to the report, "the boy is seen to be alive" and that he "moved his arm and turned his head". It added: "There is no evidence that Jamal or the boy were wounded in the manner claimed in the report … In contrast, there are numerous indications that the two were not struck by bullets at all." It said the IDF's initial admission that it hit the pair by accident was made in "the fog of war" before all evidence was gathered. After receiving the report, Netanyahu said the incident had "slandered Israel's reputation" and was a "manifestation of the ongoing, mendacious campaign to delegitimise Israel". Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, who presented the report, described the affair as "a modern-day blood libel against the state of Israel … The France 2 report was utterly baseless." In a statement, the television station said: "From the start of the incident until today, France 2 has shown a willingness to participate in any official legal proceedings accompanied by legal counsel and carried out according to international standards." Enderlin said the Israeli committee had not contacted him during the course of its investigation, and that he did not consider it to be independent or objective. He told the Jerusalem Post that France 2 was "ready to help Jamal al-Dura in any way to exhume the body of his son for a pathological examination including, if necessary, a DNA test to help clarify the circumstances of the incident". Jamal al-Dura said he was willing for his son's body to be exhumed to prove the circumstances of his death, and also called for an international investigation. "Are they willing to do an international investigation? Is Israel willing? I'm not saying the people of Israel, I mean the government, and IDF soldiers," Dura said on army radio. The committee was lying in an attempt to clear Israel of the "black stain on it in the eyes of the world", he said. He claimed the Palestinian Authority was in possession of Israeli bullets from the incident. Muhammad, he said, was buried in al-Bureiz refugee camp and was viewed as a martyr in Gaza. "Muhammad is not just my son, he's the son of the entire Palestinian nation." The Israeli report was published days before a French court is expected to issue a ruling on an appeal in a long-running libel case brought by France 2 against Philippe Karsenty, founder of a media watchdog organisation, who claimed the channel had staged the incident. FURTHER INFORMATION: