ENGLISH
© Metula News Agency
Translation in English by Nidra Poller in Paris
La Ména:
I’d like to welcome you, Mr. Shahaf, and thank you for choosing to give your comments on the Mohamad A-Dura affair here at our agency!
Shahaf:
Thank you for inviting me. I know you are serious, conscientious journalists.
La Ména:
Nahum Shahaf, you were selected to head the Israeli commission established to investigate the circumstances of the A-Dura affair. Are you a career military man?
Shahaf:
Not at all. I’m a scientist, a physicist specialized in ballistics and the technology of filming images. I was appointed on this basis.
La Ména:
How many people were on the commission?
Shahaf:
Aside from myself there was another civilian specialist and two Israeli army officers. In addition we drew on the expertise of dozens of scientists specialized in different aspects of the inquiry.
La Ména:
According to what we at the Ména knew up to today, we concluded that Charles Enderlin did not have the objective elements in hand to decently sustain his assertion on the France 2 TV newscast that Mohamad A-Dura was killed by Israeli soldiers. According to our information and the different sources we put together, it seemed more likely that the boy was killed by Palestinian gunfire.
As you know, Mr. Shahaf, Enderlin’s newscast spread all over the world and became the symbol of the heartless cruelty of Israeli soldiers and their propensity for killing Palestinian civilians and children. In fact the A-Dura images have become the main symbol of the Al Aqsa Intifada. Since then the truth about this affair is central to all polemics and everyone wants to know who killed the Palestinian child.
Shahaf:
I stay away from polemics. Polemics is the worst enemy of investigating commissions. News and communication are for journalists, that’s your business, not mine.
Let’s get right to the point that interests you. We did hundreds of hours of questioning with most of the people involved in the incident--cameramen, many doctors, Palestinians and Israelis—we did a meticulous re-enactment of the events and analyzed shooting angles; we collected hours of film, audio tapes, and written documents; and I can assure you and easily prove to you that the Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim crossing did not kill Mohamad A-Dura. From their position there is no way they could have seen Jamal A-Dura and the child crouching behind him. What’s more, there is no possible shooting trajectory between the Israeli soldiers’ position and the place where Jamal and the child were sitting.
La Ména:
The father and his child were hit by Palestinian gunfire?
Shahaf:
It is more accurate to say that the only people who were shooting in the direction of Jamal A-Dura and the child were in fact Palestinians but they aimed just to the side of their heads to give an impression of combat underway.
La Ména:
But the France 2 images show that the child was killed and the father seriously wounded. Jamal A-Dura had an operation for these wounds at a hospital in Amman.
Shahaf:
Not so. Jamal A-Dura was treated in a Jordanian hospital but this was for an earlier incident, a hand wound dating back to the previous Intifada. He told me this himself in a recorded statement. Jamal was not wounded at Netzarim, I have absolute proof.
La Ména:
And his son, Mohamad?
Shahaf:
The boy we see in Enderlin’s TV report, and on the Tunisian postage stamp you showed me, is not Mohamad [N. B. Jamal’s son] A-Dura. He’s not 12 years old, like Mohamad; he’s a bit over 14. He looks younger because in the reportage and the photo he’s sitting on his back, not his bottom.
La Ména:
And the bloodstains seen in the France 2 report? Not true either?
Shahaf:
I can show you a filmed document where you can clearly see that the impact of a bullet that supposedly hit the boy right in the stomach is in fact a piece of red cloth, used to look like blood, that falls onto his shirt as the film is shot.
Now you can understand why the Palestinian Authority won’t allow an autopsy of the body and why the dozens of cameramen who were there couldn’t film the ambulance that supposedly came to evacuate the wounded.
La Ména:
But the PA claims that an ambulance driver was shot by Israeli snipers while he was trying to evacuate Mohamad and his father. This episode was also touted, accentuating the image of nasty Israeli soldiers who shoot at children and then shoot at the people who come to their aid!
Shahaf:
But there were no pictures of the ambulance or the driver! When I questioned France 2 cameraman Talal Abou Rahma he explained that the mysterious ambulance driver was killed well before he got to the scene. Of course I recorded his testimony. That’s why there’s no ambulance in the A-Dura imposture. How could an ambulance driver be mowed down at the Netzarim crossing if he never got there? It would be magic, wouldn’t it?
La Ména:
No Mohamad A-Dura, no casualties, no ambulance driver…I’m not sure I follow you.
Shahaf:
There is no Mohamad A-Dura affair. It’s an imposture, miserably picked up and passed on by unscrupulous Western journalists and exploited to the dregs by Arab media and all their partisans.
La Ména:
The whole affair was staged?
Shahaf:
I understand your surprise but you know this is a common technique on the Palestinian side. Didn’t you see the film of the Jenine funeral where the corpse falls off the stretcher and climbs back on with no help from anyone? Several of these short films were shot in the Netzarim area on the day before the A-Dura affair, as on that day and the following days. They had directors, cameramen, and volunteer actors. We found these films. You can see them shooting little horror scenes. Often the director gets angry at the volunteers for their bad acting. The wounded get up and go back for another take, Palestinians who are watching laugh and clap their hands. Of course I can make all these rushes available to la Ména.
By the way, on one of the rushes you can clearly distinguish France 2 cameraman Talal Abou Rahma actively taking part in shooting one of these scenes.
La Ména:
The A-Dura episode is one of these morbid scenarios?
Shahaf:
Absolutely. In shots where you see the so-called seriously wounded father and the dead child you can clearly distinguish the script boy in front of the camera signaling with his fingers that it’s the second take!
La Ména:
Isn’t it true that the Israeli army had all the obstacles around the Netzarim crossing cleaned up right after Enderlin’s reportage was broadcast? Weren’t they trying to get rid of the traces of their exaction?
Shahaf:
It’s true they cleaned up the crossing but it was nine days after the affair! And solely for security reasons. For several days after the A-Dura affair, in the absence of any Israeli provocation, the Palestinians kept shooting at Netzarim, aiming at Tsahal’s position and anyone who approached the crossing. Heavy fire and Molotov cocktails were coming from four distinct positions, so the army decided to get rid of them because all that time they couldn’t bring in supplies to the settlements and the army by ground transport. The army had to fly in provisions by helicopter.
But that doesn’t change anything about the truth. We had enough time to get all the filmed evidence and testimony that established with sufficient proof what really happened that day at Netzarim.
Including the cameraman of the little scene, France 2 cameraman Talal Abou Rahma, who declared on a document I recorded that he never affirmed, and no Palestinians affirmed, that it was the Israelis who killed Mohamad A-Dura!
And Charles Enderlin even told me--in a telephone conversation--that he didn’t claim it was the Israelis who killed Mohamad A-Dura. The conversation was recorded but he didn’t know it.
Obviously these declarations from the two France 2 people are in total contradiction with what’s said in the reportage and what they continue to claim in public. Talal Abou Rahma got many prizes* for his coverage of the A-Dura affair. For one of the biggest impostures in the whole history of audio-visual media! What’s more, he was an active participant! The endless naivety of some Western media is inconceivable.
La Ména:
Speaking of Charles Enderlin, he claims that Tsahal refused to be interviewed on this whole affair. Is he telling the truth on that one?
Shahaf:
Not only did I invite Enderlin to take part in the commission’s investigation…when he suggested I bring in a Palestinian representative I immediately accepted.
And then I ran after Monsieur Enderlin, and he constantly avoided me. He didn’t answer my calls or messages or any of my faxes. He used every kind of pretext from being short of time to the most curious bureaucratic excuses.
La Ména:
For example?
Shahaf:
He asked me to send my proposals by fax, and when he got the fax he complained that it wasn’t signed. So I signed it and sent it again. But that was no good because the fax was in Hebrew [N. B. Charles Enderlin is Israeli and understands Hebrew] and he wanted it in English. Precious time was wasted between every episode of this epistolary complication, time when Enderlin did not answer my calls. [See fax below. Mr. Shahaf sent la Ména a facsimile of the original.]
Enderlin tried to put one over one me, that seems obvious to me, but I’m not the only one! In a document signed under oath before a lawyer from Gaza on October 3rd 2000 (I have the document in my possession) the cameraman Talal Abou Rahma declared, “I filmed the incident for a period of 27 minutes. . .” Interviewed in the Esther Shapira reportage, Charles Enderlin claims there are only about six minutes of rushes. And he assured me, in a recorded statement, that the 2 minutes 30 seconds he turned over to the army is the film in its entirety. Where’s the hitch?
La Ména:
Is it possible that Enderlin ignores the facts as you present them in this interview?
Shahaf:
I doubt it. I take the example of what he said when he gave the rushes to the Israeli army; he clearly claimed that they were intact, uncut, and unedited. But the army spokesman got only two minutes thirty seconds of bits of film and contrary to Charles Enderlin’s affirmations the rushes had been deliberately damaged and visibly cut and edited!
La Ména:
If what you say is true we’re dealing with an audio-visual imposture on the scale of the Timosoara affair that was used as a pretext for the overthrow and execution of the Ceausescus in Rumania. Mr. Shahaf, would you be willing to take part in a debate with contradictory specialists on a Western TV station?
Shahaf:
Of course. In fact I think that in an affair like this where you have such contradictory explanations, a public confrontation between specialists is definitely called for in the perspective of the necessary search for the truth.
La Ména:
Even in the presence of Charles Enderlin?
Shahaf:
Without a doubt. I would even say that given the circumstances, his presence would be essential, don’t you think so?
APPENDIX
Fax from Nahum Shahaf to Charles Enderlin, Thursday 7 December 2000
[English translation based on the Ména Hebrew to French version.]
Hello Charles,
On the 12th of December 2000 Yom Tov Samia, General Commander for the Southern Region, handed over to me for examination the videotape of the death of Mohamad A-Dura at Netzarim, which he says he received from France 2. According to their [N.B. the army] statement, confirmed by yours, this is an uncut unedited tape. However it appears on examination that there is a disparity between the duration of the tape in my possession (under 3 minutes) and Talal’s [N. B. Talal Abou Rahma, author of the film] affirmation that the film of the incident lasts approximately 25 minutes (statement confirmed by Mr. Abou Rahma before a notary). Under the circumstances it should be verified if Tsahal was mistakenly given a cut and edited version of the incident.
Following our discussion the other day I hereby attach my signed request for all the documentation concerning the death of the Palestinian child Mohamad A-Dura at Netzarim. I would be interested in investigation the truth about the boy’s death in order to present it to the press and to do a film on violence during the Intifada.
To reach the truth we need the serious participation of Talal the cameraman who filmed the incident and, in the same perspective, we need the cooperation of all other people involved…the Palestinian and Israeli press photographers and reporters who were on the scene.
Up to now I have questioned some of the soldiers and officers who were present on the Tsahal position that day (30 September 2000). This said I am convinced that the search for the truth requires the participation of all those who are interested in the presentation of the whole truth--whether they are Israeli, Palestinian or others--as I stated in my filmed discussions with CBS’ 60 MINUTES, in my telephone conversations with the French TV5, with the Haaretz newspaper and other organisms. I want to emphasize that in my interviews and discussions I clearly stated that no communiqué or conclusions should be given before a complete study of the incident (see my statements quoted by journalist Anna Zigelman in Haaretz). All other citation of statements attributed to me will be insufficient and nothing but rumor. This said, it is obvious that attempts to flee from the joint effort to try to reach a complete revelation of the affair on the part of any one of those involved derives from some kind of rumor.
Hoping to believe that as you said in our conversations you are interested in the full discovery of the truth and not pretenses of truth, I would be pleased to have your full cooperation in the inquiry into this affair.
(Signed) N. Shahaf (Shtroum)
N.B. Following our telephone conversation, I remind you that my first request, transmitted to you orally and in writing, remains unanswered to this day. You said this was because the request was not signed. So I send you this signed fax, which I hope satisfies your formal demand.
I would like to remind you that previously (17 October 2000) a representative of the spokesman of the Army’s Southern Command contacted your office to request that you cooperate with me. That same day I contacted you by telephone on this subject, after informing you that I had Tsahal’s backing in this affair.
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