Durra’s Father Rebuffs Israeli Denial of Killing

by Mohammed Mar’i

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 3 October 2007 — A senior Israeli official revived a controversy yesterday by charging that famed television footage of a Palestinian child allegedly killed by Israeli fire at the outbreak of the intifada in 2000 was staged.

In the images broadcast by France 2 public television in September 2000, Mohammed Durra and his father are seen crouching in fear on a Gaza street, caught in the crossfire between Palestinians and the Israeli army.

The images then show the 12-year-old Durra lying dead on the ground, with France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin saying he was killed by Israeli fire. The images raised a storm of controversy around the world and became one of the most potent symbols of the Palestinian intifada.

The army had initially accepted responsibility over the incident. But in an official letter, Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) chief Daniel Seaman claimed Durra could not have been shot by Israeli fire and that the France 2 cameraman had staged the incident.

“It is impossible that the child was hit by Israeli troops. The wounds actually show that they were caused by shots that came from the Palestinian direction,” Seaman wrote in the letter.

“The Israeli claims of invented myths and mythology are simultaneously ridiculous and irritating,” said Jamal Durra in response.

“All the inquiries proved without a shadow of a doubt that the bullets were Israeli bullets. It has already been said that the Palestinian Authority didn’t use that type of ammunition,” Durra’s father added.

“And the fire came from the Israeli side. I remember the origin of the gunfire — it was from the Israeli side and only from their side. If it was the Palestinians I would have been hit from the back. But the bullets in my body and that of my son’s came from the front, which proves they came from the Israeli outpost.”