Friday, October 1, 2010

The killing of little Muhammed al-Durra, ten years after



Al Jazeera English made a moving portrait of the family Al-Durra in the Bureij camp in Gaza. The family became world famous ten years ago when the 11-year old son Mohammed got killed while his father in vain tried to protect him. The dramatic event  was shot by a Palestinian camaraman of French tv and after it had been broadcasted went all over the world. The dying Mohammed al-Durra and his father Jamal became icons as it were of the Second Intifada. So much so, that Israel started to invest lots of time and energy in a hasbara campaign in which it 'proved' that Mohammed in fact was shot not by Israelis but by Palestinians, or even  that he did not die at all. (Here is an example of the stories and tapes). Also the French reporter Charles Enderlin (himself Jewish) was sued in court for libel, and stangely enough lost the case because he was not able to prove that the bullets that killed the boy. were really Israeli ones.
But ten years later Al-Jazeera paints a portrait of a family for which the death of Mohammed is still very much a fact of their life, and of a father who never doubted for a second where the bullets came from.    

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