The Jerusalem weekly, Kol Ha’zman, published in its Oct. 6 issue an interview with Talal Abu Rachmah, the TV photographer who filmed the death of Muchmud Al-dirah, the 12 year-old child shot dead at Netzarim Junction on the third day of Arab rioting.

This is what he said:-

“I was in my Gaza City office when we received notice that there was shooting at Netzarim Junction…when I arrived there was already heavy shooting…the shots came from all over, heavy shooting from every direction, many shots from automatic weapons. It was terrible and I was forced to take cover inside the van…the shooting intensified and then, for the first time, some 15 meters in front of me, I saw the Reuters photojournalist hiding there and next to him, a man and a child…after a few minutes, the photojournalist managed to get out and the father and son crouched and compressed themselves between the low block wall and a large metal barrel. I heard him shouting and waving his hands in the direction of the shots…he continued shouting but wans’t heard. Maybe he was trying to attract attention that they would know that he was there with the child…I thought that if I would move [in the direction of Al-dirah & son] then I would endanger the lives of the four other people with me.

Until that moment, it was clear to me that the [Israeli] soldiers did not notice that someone was hiding there…afterwards, I saw that he took out a mobile phone and spoke to someone, but he wasn’t successful in conversing and then he took a bullet in the hand…an ambulance pulled up…and the soldiers continued shooting. The driver was hit and was killed. This lasted for a long time and then there was quiet for a few seconds and then, ‘boom’, I heard another sound, different, louder than what I heard previously. The area where they were taking cover filled with debris dust, we didn’t see a thing and when it disspated, I saw that the child who was all the time close to his father, was lying on the ground, his face in the earth”.

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