Israel claims iconic images which showed the death of a Palestinian boy in Gaza 13 years ago may have been staged
It is a film that came to symbolise the second intifada as Palestinian-Israeli tensions exploded into war 13 years ago.
A terrified 12-year-old Palestinian boy clinging to his father as bullets fly above their head before he is shot dead during an exchange of fire between Israeli and Palestinian gunmen.
But now a new Israeli report into the death of Mohammed al-Durra in the Gaza Strip claims the images may have been staged by the French television station that first aired the 55-second film in 2000.
It instantly became a powerful propaganda tool for the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and was reproduced on postage stamps and street murals across the Middle East.
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The pictures of Mohammed and Jamal al-Dura under fire in Gaza were shown around the world in 2000Other Arab countries named schools and streets in his honour, his father was invited on speaking tours in the Arab world and was honored by universities and political parties while Islamic militants cited the case as justification for carrying out attacks against Israel and Jewish targets overseas.
The France 2 television network report, which aired on September 30, 2000, days after the Palestinian uprising erupted, directly blamed Mohammed al-Dura's death on Israeli forces.
More... Hidden face of Syria's armed rebellion: Kurdish female fighters pick up arms as Assad pushes forward into rebel-held land Forty killed in car bombings across Iraq as new wave of sectarian violence threatens to destabilise countryAnd bizarrely, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) even admitted killing the boy by accident at first, but quickly backtracked claiming he was in fact slain by Palestinian friendly fire.
Israel later blamed the 'mistake' on the 'fog of war', claiming it was made before all the evidence was gathered.
