This collaboration is very important to me as an Arab Muslim.
The Muhammad al-Durrah incident took place in the Gaza Strip on 30 September 2000, on the second day of the Second Intifada, during widespread rioting throughout the Palestinian territories. Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son, Muhammad, were filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2, as they were caught in crossfire between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. The footage shows the pair crouching behind a concrete cylinder, the boy crying and the father waving, then a burst of gunfire and dust, after which the boy is seen slumped across his father’s legs.2

Fifty-nine seconds of the footage were broadcast in France with a voiceover from Charles Enderlin, the station’s bureau chief in Israel, who was not present during the shooting. Based on information from the cameraman, Enderlin told viewers that the al-Durrahs had been the “target of fire from the Israeli positions” and that the boy had died.34 After an emotional public funeral, Muhammad was hailed throughout the Muslim world as a martyr.5

Over the months and years that followed, commentators questioned the accuracy of France 2’s report. The Israel Defense Forces accepted responsibility for the shooting at first but later retracted.67 French journalists who saw the raw footage confirmed that France 2 had cut a final few seconds in which Muhammad appeared to lift his hand from his face; they acknowledged that he had died, but said the footage alone did not show it. France 2’s news editor said in 2005 that no one could be sure who fired the shots.8 Other commentators, particularly Philippe Karsenty, a French media commentator, went further, alleging that the scene had been staged by Palestinian protesters; France 2 sued him for libel and in 2013 he was fined €7,000 by the Court of Appeal of Paris.9 In May that year an Israeli government report supported Karsenty’s view.10 Jamal al-Durrah and Charles Enderlin rejected its conclusion and called for an independent international investigation.1112

The footage of the father and son acquired what one writer called the power of a battle flag.8 Postage stamps in the Middle East carried the images; one of the images was visible in the background when Daniel Pearl, a Jewish-American journalist, was beheaded by al-Qaeda in 2002.1314 James Fallowswrote of the controversy that “no version of truth that is considered believable by all sides will ever emerge.”13