New Footage Contradicts DCI-P’s Account of Betunia Casualties

Newly released footage of the May 15 disputed fatal shootings of two Palestinian teenagers during “Nakba Day” clashes in Betunia contradicts the account that emerged from a heavily-edited video released by Defence for Children International – Palestine, which alleged that the two were killed after the violent clash had died down.

As The Los Angeles Times put it:

But questions arose after rights organizations circulated videos Tuesday that purport to show the incident. The videos, released by the Palestinian branch of Defense for Children International and the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, or B’Tselem, appear to show the boys were unarmed and not engaged in confrontation with soldiers or close to them when they were shot.

Indeed, Fakher Zayed, a Palestinian interviewed in the DCI video, (see video below) claims:

At the moment of the killings, nothing was going on and no stone-throwing was taking place.

Based on the heavily-edited DCI-P footage, The New York Times reported:

Neither of the teenagers appeared to be engaged in provocative behavior at the time they were shot, though a photograph shows one wearing a black ski mask, and the video shows another individual hurling stones from the same spot seven minutes before the first shooting.

The 11 hours of footage that B’Tselem released today shows hours of rock-throwing before Nadim Nawareh and Muhammad Salameh were shot.

It also shows that Nawareh was part of a group of youth who continued to throw stones up until one minute before he was shot, not seven minutes. DCI-Palestine’s deceptive editing made it appear that the stone-throwing ended fully seven minutes before the shooting, and this is what The Times reported. (See 39:22 minutes into the video below.)

The difference between one minute and seven minutes is significant. Was Nawareh shot in the midst of an ongoing violent conflict, or after the violence had dissipated?

The second fatality, occured only 2.5 minutes after rocks were thrown. However, at this point Salameh had been throwing rocks for hours. (View from 21:54 minutes from the video below.)

That the media was misled by DCI-Palestine is not particularly surprising. NGO Monitor documents, for instance, how DCI-Palestine Section promotes the “Jenin massacre” myth and advocates BDS, and its director, Rifat Odeh Kassis is also the coordinator and spokesman for the vitriolic Kairos Palestine document.

— With research by Gidon Shaviv