Claim No. 9: There was blood at the scene, and on the ground by the barrel the next day
Aldurah.com critique
Here is a 2008 interview by media outlet Canal+ of Muhammad Kedra, the stretcher bearer claiming to have evacuated the body of Muhammad Al Durah to Shifa hospital, following the alleged shooting:
Kedra states unequivocally: “The child was lying down face on the ground. When I turned him up and saw that his intestines were outside – so I took him and put him in the ambulance…”
Kedra goes on to say “the child was dead; all his intestines were spread on the sidewalk.”
This would seem confirm the grievous wounds alleged to have been suffered by the Al Durahs – as described by Jamal Al Durah, Talal Abu Rahma and Charles Enderlin. Such injuries should have produced easily visible evidence of massive bleeding, quite conspicuous to anyone viewing the video. Indeed Abu Rahma recounted to Esther Schapira that he remembered the image of the bleeding quite vividly.
However, Abu Rahma’s own contemporaneous video footage of the incident and its aftermath – and video of the scene from the following morning taken by an Italian film crew granted access to the site – are remarkable for the total absence of blood visible at the scene.
Particularly damning to Enderlin’s version of events is a piece of video footage – narrated by Charles Enderlin himself and broadcast by France2 the day after the alleged shooting – which shows with absolute clarity that there was no blood whatsoever on the ground by the barrel after the shooting. This footage shows pristine ground at exactly same spot where the Palestinian news conference video called the day after shows “blood”.
In this context, note Enderlin’s testimony to investigative journalist Esther Schapira where Enderlin references the claim (illustrated to be factual through close examination of Talal Abu Rahma’s contemporaneous video of the alleged shooting) that the “blood” appearing in Abu Rahma’s video of the alleged shooting scene is actually a red-stained handkerchief.
In arguing with Esther Schapira about the presence of blood at the scene, Charles Enderlin appeals to video footage, taken at a Palestinian press conference called the day after the alleged shooting to “document” the Zionist crime”. In that footage, a small quantity of some reddish substance does appear on the ground, behind where Jamal Al-Durah had been crouching – along with a cloth, stained bright red. If Muhammad Al Durah had been lying on the ground in front of his father – as shown in Talal Abu Rahma’s video – with his intestines expelled, as per Kedra’s statement – or his stomach “exploded”, as per Talal Abu Rahma’s account – there should have been a lot of blood visible – in front of where Jamal Al Durah had been sitting. But there is none, there.
Here is where things get interesting:
Judging from the shadows visible in the footage shown of the Palestinian news conference, it was filmed sometime in the morning. Judging from the shadows in the footage by the barrel broadcast by France2 the following day and narrated by Enderlin – which shows absolutely no blood – that video was filmed on the afternoon – presumably on the day that the Al Durahs were allegedly shot. That footage could not have been filmed on the afternoon of the day following the alleged shooting, because by the afternoon of the following day a reddish substance and a bright red-stained rag had already appeared at that location in time for the Palestinian news conferences – and cleaning up the “evidence” of the alleged shooting before filming the spot would surely interfere with the Palestinian narrative. Now, since there would be no reason for anyone film of the ground and barrel at that particular location the day before the alleged shooting – unless they knew something significant was going to happen there (which itself would prompt a number of truly disturbing questions) – we will assume the film was recorded shortly after the alleged shooting.
However, this still leaves us with three disturbing questions:
1) What would account for Enderlin’s appeal to the Palestinian news conference footage to support his allegation that there was blood at the scene resulting from the alleged shooting, when France2’s earlier film footage – which he narrated himself – clearly contradicts that allegation?
2) The spontaneous appearance of a reddish substance at the scene on;y the day after the incident – behind where Jamal Al-Durah had been crouching is decidedly odd. Moreover, why would the substance appear only in a spot other than where blood should have pooled – if it had actually been draining from the stomach of a boy laying in Jamal Al-Durah’s lap, with his back toward Jamal, at the time of the shooting
3) How does one account for the vivid redness of the cloth, which also spontaneously (re)appeared a day after the incident at the site? The cloth –supposedly soaked in blood –would have spent nearly a day exposed to air, sun, etc. Its bright red color is wholly inconsistent with how actual blood would have appeared the day after a shooting.
Enderlin’s long-standing insistence that the footage from the Palestinian press conference shows actual blood, substantiating the Palestinian narrative of events, indicates that – at best – he failed to view the evidence with a critical eye. The ‘bloody’ rag – still a stark bright red, hours after the alleged shooting – the lack of any blood spatter on the wall and the odd location of the ‘blood’ vis a vis the location of where Muhammad allegedly bled to death all should have raised significant doubt in Enderlin’s mind. At worst, Enderlin chose – whether consciously or unconsciously – to blind himself to the evidence. Enderlin continued to purvey a false narrative which was directly contradicted by footage he knew about and which France2 broadcast the day after the alleged shooting.