This photo corresponds to the point 1:45 into the security video when the photographers rushed up to take pictures. The person in dark clothes is the first one to reach Salameh, possibly a doctor. He is seen throwing down a black bag and then kneeling. He appears to move Salameh around, feeling his chest and back, possibly searching for wounds. Absolutely no blood is seen anywhere.
Another Safadi picture (not in the CNN broadcast) shows Salameh a moment later. There is still no blood visible on his clothes or the hand of the man in dark clothes, who is apparently holding it over the exit wound:
The 5.56 mm bullet of the type used in the Israeli weapons visible in the Khadder video has a tendency to tumble and fragment in the body, especially if it hits bone, as is likely if it passes through the chest either from the front or the back. It would make a small entry hole, an expanding wound channel and a large (several inches) exit wound. Bleeding would be profuse, and a large amount of force would be transferred to the body, knocking it away from the direction of impact. None of this was visible in either case.
A photographer interviewed by Ha’aretz adds more complexity to the story:
Agence France-Presse photographer Abbas Al Momani told Haaretz that the Israeli forces at the Beitunia incident had split into two groups.
“Some of the troops, mostly Border Police, took position in a high building overlooking the road, some 50-to-60 meters away [these are the ones in the CNN video -ed.]. Another group was in the prison parking lot, and they were even farther away, more than 150 meters away,” he said.
Momani said that during the demonstration, dozens of youngsters hurled rocks at the troops, who retaliated with rubber bullets and smoke grenades. “The youths were hit when things had calmed down. That’s why I and my colleagues were sitting in the shade, rather than standing at the scene. We felt the incident was winding down. There were a few dozen boys still at the site, most of them school students,” he said.
Momani said the photographers can distinguish rubber bullets from live fire. Throughout the incident, the soldiers shot rubber bullets, but “the live bullets came in isolated shots,” he said.
“We heard the shots well, but I can’t say if they came from the troops in the building or the other group. But there’s no doubt that during the shooting, there was no confrontation, and the youths did not approach the soldiers,” he said.
Conclusions
At first, I thought the security video was a ‘Pallywood’ production like the al-Durah hoax in which no one was actually shot. I suspected that two different Palestinians were killed that day, in direct confrontation with the IDF, perhaps throwing firebombs, and the video was an attempt to prove that two teens had been shot for no reason. But the IDF did not report any such incident and insists that no live ammunition was used anywhere that day.
In addition, the first still photo taken by Atef Safadi appears (despite the ski mask) to at least superficially resemble the one of Salameh taken at the funeral (he is the one in the back, draped with the green Hamas flag). The still seems to fit well with the security video. The original photo should be examined carefully by experts, but it appears not to be photoshopped.
