Enderlin’s Latest Cover-Ups Attempts

Responding to Reuven Pehatzur’s Jan. 24, 2010 Op-Ed recapping evidence pointing to the staged killing of Mohammed Al Dura, France 2’s Charles Enderlin writes in a letter in Ha’aretz today:

Regarding “Mohammed is not dead,” January 24, by Reuven Pedatzur

The claim that there was not a drop of blood at the scene [where Mohammed al-Dura allegedly was killed in 2000] is erroneous. Blood is clearly visible in the videos, and is mentioned in the reports prepared by the hospital that treated Jamal al-Dura, Mohammed’s father.

Jamal filed a libel suit in France against Dr. Yehua David and a French Jewish newspaper that published his argumetn that the father’s scars are from an operation conducted six years earlier. Dr. David was referring only to injuries to the limbs, and not to a serious injury to Jamal’s hip. An investigative judge in France accepted the suit, and the case will be heard in court.

I would like to point out that no doctor in Shifa Hospital has claimed that the child brought to the emergency room arrived at 10 A.M. The emergency room director said: “Mohammed al-Dura arrived around 1 P.M.” That was 2 P.M. Israel time, because the Palestinians switched to winter time.

Pedatzur implies there was a conspiracy involving hundreds of Palestinian protesters, Shifa Hospital doctors and doctors from the military hospital in Jordan, where Jamal al-Dura was treated, and that Israeli security services did not find anything about it. Is this possible?

Talal Abu Rahma filmed the real time events as they occurred on September 20, 2000, at the Netzarim junction for the French station, France 2. This not a staged event [sic], but rather problematic events that led to Mohammed al-Dura being killed and his father being seriously injured. In order to review the incident, France 2 and Jamasl have announced more than once that they are willing to have the boy’s remains exhumed. France 2 stated that it is willing to establish an investigative committee based on international standards.

Despite this, an official request from any Israeli entity to participate in a serious and official investigation has never been received.

I would like to clarify that the legal battle against Philippe Karsenty is not yet over and is still pending before the High Court of Appeals in Paris. In addition, France 2’s management voiced sharp protest over Esther Shapira’s film.

Is Enderlin to be believed now? In the past, Enderlin has said “I cut the images of the child’s agony (death throes), they were unbearable,” and yet journalists who saw the complete, unedited footage said they saw no agonized death throes.

In addition, Enderlin’s claim today that the boy’s body was brought into the hospital at 2 p.m. is also problematic, given that his original report put the time of the shooting incident at 3 pm:

3 pm… everything has turned over near the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip…here Jamal and his son Mohammed are the targets of gunshots that have come from the Israeli position…. A new burst of gunfire, Mohammed is dead and his father seriously wounded.” [September 30, 2000, France 2 evening newscast]