A film that's a complete phony, and the TV news shows the entire two minutes of it. Two minutes is an eternity on prime-time news. I wonder how much time CNN will devote to its correction and apology.

Posted by: ebonystone at January 9, 2009 2:13 PM

"The video claims to be filmed by the brother of a Palestinian teen that claims the boy was one of two purposefully killed by a missile fired at them by an Israeli drone as they played."

Yeah. IDF is going to waste a missile on two boys, with so many better and legitimate targets at hand? I doubt it.

Posted by: Stormwarning at January 9, 2009 2:15 PM

Ebonystone, CNN will devote as much time as it takes to say the words "we didn't report it accurately" IF they air a correction at all.

Posted by: Proud_Kafir7908 at January 9, 2009 2:27 PM

1- the "doctor" is using a technique that isn't for a child. What he is doing is more closely related to infant chest compressions. Doing compressions on a child requires one palm in the middle of the nipple line. The head must be held in the neutral position. It isn't.

2- no one is doing breathing between compression sets. A ratio for two person CPR is 30 compressions to 2 breaths. There should be someone providing breaths by mouth mask or bag. There ain't.

Posted by: conor H at January 9, 2009 2:32 PM

With a little variation on the only good kafir is a dead kafir...

The only good fakir is a bad fakir on CNN via youtube..

Don't they know that agenda driven "news media" is dead?

lan astaslem,

Posted by: GoingThere at January 9, 2009 2:59 PM

This war is being fought by perception. I would guess the more wrong (in their case right) the more deception is needed. This thread and the one below show the extent of the deception.

Sadly the west for the sack of alleged freedom of the press do not control the microphone and as a result lose the high ground in public perception.

It also does not help with the head in the sand MSM controlling the mic. One of these days the truth will be allowed to get out. Pray for that day.

Pro 26:26
While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, it will finally come to light for all to see.

المؤيد 26:26
في حين قد تكون مخبأة الكراهية بواسطة الخداع ، سوف تتكشف في النهاية ليراها الجميع.

Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at January 9, 2009 3:21 PM

DECEIT is Islam's foundation and claim to fame; beginning, but not ending with yours truly: Muhammad.

Posted by: champ at January 9, 2009 3:26 PM

This needs to be circulated everywhere.

Posted by: Amerisrael at January 9, 2009 3:29 PM

I say the doctor is a fair target for the IDF soldiers.

The doctor has proven that he is willing to choose sides and fight the war against the IDF.

I cannot believe that he actually has medical credentials and or had them rejected. The video of him 'faking' a civilian's death is enough to have his credentials taken worldwide for life.

Posted by: alaskan1000 at January 9, 2009 3:44 PM

I had CPR training...Looks fake to me...

Posted by: duh_swami at January 9, 2009 4:33 PM

IS it just me, or does every Palestinian own a video camera? They must have a great version of "Palestine's Funniest Home Videos" Yeah, Paliwood!

Side note:
Do you think this Doctor would help an injured Israeli?
Do you think an Israeli Doctor would treat him?

Kinda reminds me of the jihadi video of a sniper shooting an American soldier, who happened to be the medic that saved the jihadi's life after the battle.

Posted by: darvvin at January 9, 2009 4:39 PM

I read the comments on this video and the second version of it, over at LGF. Lots of really good observations, in addition to the obvious fake CPR. Including observations about the rooftop scene and the funeral scene. And the obvious bias of the tv commentators. Worth reading.

And the rooftop looks like the cinderblocks were placed, perhaps, to shoot off their own rockets. Maybe that is what actually happened to the boys?

Posted by: Borg at January 9, 2009 5:43 PM

Are you trying to suggest that they injured their own children during a rocket launch and then blamed it on Israel. Sounds a bit far fetched to me ;-)

Posted by: darvvin at January 9, 2009 6:23 PM

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47097721709

This is a Facebook group called "The truth about Mads Gilbert". You are welcome to join.

Most people in Norway think he is a hero, but some realize the horrible truth.

Posted by: Norway at January 9, 2009 6:24 PM

The Doctor had to stage this event? Not enough of the real thing I guess.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at January 9, 2009 6:29 PM

According to experts, the sociopath, when found out in his totally selfish or disgustingly manipulative and cynical behavior, tries to play on the compassion of the accuser, though the sociopath has no compassion himself. Similarly, Hamas and its supporters, Muslim militants, attempt to play on Western compassion for children, by faking child mortalities, yet Hamas and Muslim militants have no such compassion themselves and readily use children as human shields, suicide bombs, etc. A sociopathic social movement if ever there was one.

Posted by: traeh at January 9, 2009 8:51 PM

OK, having seen the video from CNN, a couple of questions about the footage arises:

1) The CPR is obviously faked, although whether this is pure propaganda or for the benefit of the family, it is impossible to tell whether either or both are the reasons.

2) The more portly gentleman giving faux compressions seems to ask Gilbert, the Norwegian doctor, "He died?", and the doctor in response seems to shrug, point at the monitor and say "Look at the...". And then another assistant seems to hand Gilbert two stick-on leads for the ECG, while the soundtrack contains another "He died?". If the order of the clips has not been rearranged, it would seem that the Gilbert is placing new electrodes on a dead body after he has told the assistant that the boy is dead.

3) If this 'freelance camera' brother, Ashrad, was shooting video of "other, less personal images of the war", and appearing at the hospital, then who is operating the camera? He is obviously not working alone, because in all video he is in front of the camera, not behind it. This means that there must be a team of at least two. The clip implies strongly that the bearded man in blue jacket with grey collar is Ashrad - but if he's the cameraman, then who is operating the camera? I would think would be unusual to have a team of two cameramen especially since they seem to have only one camera. Thus, even though Ashrad is the cameraman, someone else is shooting the video in all clips we can see - even before he is supposed to know about his brother's death. So you have a team with the cameraman not being a cameraman. Is this indeed an independent cameraman, an independent camera team, or not independent at all?

4) The size of the explosion seems far too small for it to be a standard drone-launched guided missile. There are important spang marks on the rooftop, concentric circles of damage. These could be used to identify the type of munition that detonated on the roof as well as the direction and angle it came from. Undamaged shadowed areas can indicate the position of equipment or people's bodies who have intercepted the spang. The size of the explosion damage seems more appropriate for an RPG munition or light mortar round. An examination of the damage should quickly determine what caused the damage.

5) The claim that there were two boys Mahmoud and Ahmad, with both reportedly killed by "a rocket fired, said the family, by an pilotless Israeli drone." How did they know it was a missile from an unmanned drone? So, with "scores of women and children here", just two boys were allowed on the roof to play? Ashrad claims that they were specifically targeted, "The Israeli plane targeted them for small rockets, for them, just for them.", which sounds like a very unsupportable accusation, with all the witnesses who were on the roof dead. What happened to Ahmad?

6) The claim that the house is "Safe". My memory might be failing me but first CNN clip I saw used the term "safe house", but rewatching it, there is no such term used. There may have been a re-edit (there are certainly two or more versions of the broadcast clip), or my memory is faulty. I just thought it a very strange term at the time. In western parlance, a 'safe house' can be one where a fugitive can hide out since nobody knows they are there. The phrase 'safe house' might be a translation issue, or a figment of my imagination. Anyway, the clip still uses the term "safe" to refer to the house. What makes a house safe in a battle zone? There is no part of Gaza that is beyond reach of rocket fire, both outgoing and incoming. What would make a person think that a house was safe? Would the presence of "scores of women and children" make it 'safe', if you believe that the Israelis are not going to target a house full of civilians? For this to be successful, you would have to make sure that the Israelis knew there were these "scores of women and children" inside - how do you tell the Israelis that. And if if do, how are you going to ensure that they believe the house contains only non-combatants, without materiél stored within?

7) An implication that the war has forced the family to cut their grieving short so a hasty burial can be done. Those of know Jewish and Islamic burial rites know that it is important that the dead are buried as soon as possible. Had the teenager been killed in a car accident, there still would have been a rush to bury the body, unusual in western practices. There is an implication of cruely that would concern most of their western audience.

I don't doubt that at least one young person died and was buried. I do have concerns about how the video and narration was constructed and unsubstantiated allegations made to create this work. I have great concerns about who edited this video, and what editing CNN did once it was in their hands and why they broadcast such a work that seemed to accept all the allegations made as a true and correct record of what exactly happened.

Posted by: Gharkad at January 9, 2009 9:56 PM

I've found the video I thought I saw - a copy is on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vfFnkMFwMY

The comments below should be considered additions to my last posting.

2) (CONT). The order of the clips in the Channel 4 (Ch4) story is different to the CNN story. In the Ch4 story, Ashraf makes it home to hold his brother, already dressed up in a shroud, before they take him to hospital. I would think that if someone was still alive, they would not have waited until the brother got home then let him cradle his brother before taking Mahmoud off the the hospital to have the less-than-heroic attempts to save his life applied. It is far more likely that the video of Ashraf holding the body of Mahmoud is taken after that at the hospital: after he has been pronounced dead. Why the reordering of the clips then? Is it meant to promote a partial story of Ashraf, racing home, beset by difficulties, only to find his brother already dead? This then conflicts with the second partial-story: Ashraf races to the hospital, but arrives just in time to find his brother Mahmoud dying despite Heroic attempts by the medical staff. In the Ch4, the first story wins, in the CNN story, the heroic medical staff story wins.

3) (CONT) The Ch4 identifies the bearded man in the clips as Ashraf, so who is the person videoing him? Ch4 say that Ashraf was an independent cameraman that they were employing - do they normally send out two cameramen and one camera to do a story?

6) (CONT), "His family said that this was known as a safe house, there were scores of women here." Now that I have located that quote, it does seem strange that the house was called a 'safe house', as there is questions in my mind as to what exactly makes a house safe, unless you are a suspect, a criminal, or a spy on the run looking for a house where you will not be found. How someone could assume that a 'safe house' is that full of 'scores of women and children' unless you believe that i) the Israelis don't target protected persons, and ii) the Israelis knew that the house contained 40+ non-combatants. By calling it a 'safe house' they admit that there are some things the Israelis will not do, even if in the following two minute story, the Israelis are accused of deliberately targeting the very thing that would make the house a 'safe house': women and children.

8) The Channel 4 voiceover makes a judgement of war crimes against Israel:
"Israel, equipped with the most technologically advanced guided missiles and video target selection that America can supply had selected, targeted, and killed two more children in Gaza." No ifs, buts, or maybes. A pronouncement of guilt, with the only thing undecided is the sentence on the adjudged guilty party. Oh, and the implication that these two deaths are part of an ongoing programme of targeting protected persons.

Posted by: Gharkad at January 10, 2009 12:38 AM

Evil people telling lies.

Gee Whiz!

Who would ever expect something like that?

Posted by: joeblough at January 10, 2009 2:52 AM

This film is such an obvious fraud. Aside from the medical charade played out:
1. There is a blood spot on the sheet on the bed, but nothing on the white sheet wrapped around the boy actor.
2. When the kid is being carried around his head is upright, instead of flopping back if he were really dead. He's a bigger kid, so more effort would have been needed to hold his head up.
3. The broken piece of concrete on the roof looks like it was smashed with a hammer. Nothing else seems to have been broken, especially in a blast.
4. That's not a bloodstain on the floor of the rooftop.
5. The kid looks awfully clean for having been hit with so much shrapnel. (You never get a look at his face for obvious reasons.)
6. The bottom half of the kid is never shown. If he had lost a foot there would have been a lot of blood.
7. Blood spreads on a cotton sheet. Nothing much to see here. Certainly nothing that relates to such serious wounds.

The question that bothers me is why would CNN bother to promote such an obvious fake? Is the demonization of Israel and the IDF, which is one of the few armies in the world that takes extraordinary steps to prevent civilian harm to its ENEMIES, more important than journalistic integrity? How can anyone trust any news from CNN if it stoops this low without any pangs of conscience?

Posted by: Ashan at January 10, 2009 5:15 AM

Ashan,

In analysing this video, we must be scrupulously accurate, otherwise it opens us up to having everything we say dismissed if even one of our criticisms is incorrect.

With regard to your points:
1) I think you will see a dark spot on the white sheet/shroud at what seems to be the left elbow of the body. When the 'CPR' was being applied, Mahmoud was covered with a patterned blanket. The wide bloodstain on the bottom sheet could have been created at the time the body was on the treatment table, underneath the patterned blanket. After Mahmoud was pronounced dead, the blanket would have been removed and a sheet introduced to wrap the body. Without a beating heart, the blood would have still slowly infiltrated the sheet but without being pumped out by the blood pressure in the body. Remember, they've just put the body into the sheet here.
2) No comment - can't really tell enough from the short clips presented. If you are talking about Mahmoud's body at home on the couch, his head is being supported by the Ashraf the cameraman's right arm behind his neck.
3) There is a small crater nearby on the flat part of the roof - see my comment 4) above. Anti-personnel ordnance is usually optimised to fling metal fragments in particular directions at high speed, rather than injuring by blast effects.
4) In the Channel 4 version on the YouTube clip at 1:17 is what appears to be a bloodstain. Also, there are large pools of water on the roof, probably as a result of the roof being hosed down with water. I tested the tint of this water with this computer, and some parts of the pools of water have a decidedly red tint to the water that is not in the normal rooftop colour.
5) Hospitals tend to clean up the patients as early as possible to minimise infection as well as being able assess the full extent of his injuries. The report says the boy was injured in the back and the head, so most likely you wouldn't see many injuries on the front. Notice the large cut on the side of left leg which doesn't seem to be bleeding.
6) The report says Mahmoud and Ahmed, were the two boys who were killed on the rooftop, and the other Ahmed was admitted to hospital too, but died. It is the other boy Ahmed who lost the foot according to the same report.
7) A metal fragment the size of a BB can kill you and the entry wound can be very hard to find. Not all deaths are caused by exsanguination (blood loss).

Posted by: Gharkad at January 10, 2009 11:29 PM