Fake Child Death Video From Hamas?

[gdnp]

It's a losing battle. There is only one media narrative coming out of Gaza now and that is "dead kids". It is now reaching the point of absurdity with the UN stating that 35% of all deaths are kids.

The initial attacks killed mostly militants. The recent actions appear to be having a much higher civilian toll. With half the Gaza population children, the 35% number may not be that unreasonable.

 

[DC]

If the kid was dead the guy doing "chest compressions" culd have actually done that without hurting the kid. If he was alive and acting it explains why he's just using his fingertips and also why the camera doesn't pan down except very briefly.

His head did move at one point, which means that rigor mortis hadn't set in. Also, the body doesn't look stiff. From what I understand rigor mortis sets in after 3 hours, doubtful he went from death to grave in that time.

But what really gets my spidey-senses tingling is that of all the doctors in Gaza, we get Mads Gilbert! And that this videographer also hosts Hamas web sites on the side. It has propaganda written all over it.

The only 2 news sites that I've seen carrying the video are CNN and Channel 4, and CNN took theirs down.

mmh ok.

i agree the Doctor looks strange to me, seems more concentrated on the people around him / the camera, and also the guy doing heartmassage looks somehow not concentrated and no ventilation what i would expect. but i dunno about the medical part.

but not for a second i think the kid is playing dead, i can imagen they used a death kid just for media propaganda.

and as i never heard from the doctor before, i am not prejudiced about him actually. and i find he is strange, would be interesting what doctor on this bord think.

 

[Texas]

The initial attacks killed mostly militants. The recent actions appear to be having a much higher civilian toll. With half the Gaza population children, the 35% number may not be that unreasonable.

Riiight. There have been 750 reported deaths. That means that 35% are kids and we have heard about all of the women and elderly that are reported as dead civilians lets say 15% of the dead and then throw in another 10% of non-combatant military aged males and you are left with Israel Only killing 400 legitimate Hamas fighters in 2 weeks of all out fighting. This being a skeptics forum, when does your skepticism come into play?

 

[The Fool]

It's a losing battle. There is only one media narrative coming out of Gaza now and that is "dead kids". It is now reaching the point of absurdity with the UN stating that 35% of all deaths are kids.

Do you realise the proportion of the palestinian population that are children? Over Half of them are children......think about it.

 

[Leif Roar]

[SNIP] ... you are left with Israel Only killing 400 legitimate Hamas fighters in 2 weeks of all out fighting.

Which sounds reasonable, if maybe slightly on the high side, actually. Consider that in 2006 the IDF killed an estimated five to six hundred Hezbollah fighters over four weeks of fighting.

 

[gdnp]

Riiight. There have been 750 reported deaths. That means that 35% are kids and we have heard about all of the women and elderly that are reported as dead civilians lets say 15% of the dead and then throw in another 10% of non-combatant military aged males and you are left with Israel Only killing 400 legitimate Hamas fighters in 2 weeks of all out fighting. This being a skeptics forum, when does your skepticism come into play?

I have no way of estimating how many Hamas fighters should be killed. I would think it would depend on how many Hamas militants are fighting back and what weapons they are using. I would expect that if they were actively fighting back there would be a significant number of Israeli casualties. Thus far most of the Israeli casualties of which I have heard reported have been from friendly fire. This suggests to me that Hamas militants are not, for the most part, actively confronting Israeli troops. That would lead Israel the option of responding to events such as the mortar fire at the UN school, that seem to have caused far more civilian casualties than military ones.

 

[WildCat]

Which sounds reasonable, if maybe slightly on the high side, actually. Consider that in 2006 the IDF killed an estimated five to six hundred Hezbollah fighters over four weeks of fighting.

IIRC Israel never had more than 600 or so ground troops in Lebanon. They have 10,000 in Gaza.

 

[Earthborn]

No other child death is being so widely reported, not as dramatic as this one.

There is a simple explanation for that. No doubt more children died. But only one of them has a brother who is a cameraman who could film it.

This one has all the elements the western media loves.

That only explains why it is being so widely reported. It doesn't prove it was fake.

From what I understand rigor mortis sets in after 3 hours, doubtful he went from death to grave in that time.

Since you obviously looked that up in Wikipedia, I suggest reading it carefully. Rigor Mortis starts to set in after 3 hours, but isn't completed after 3 hours.

It has propaganda written all over it.

That doesn't mean it is fake. The best propaganda often is truth presented one-sidedly.

But they still have the text of the story, so it doesn't appear that it was pulled for reasons of accuracy.

My guess is that they probably pulled it for technical reasons. With all the blogs and forums you get lots of people all trying to access this same video at the same time.

 

[WildCat]

and as i never heard from the doctor before, i am not prejudiced about him actually.

He admits he mixes politics with medicine to push his agenda:

Gilbert is a radical Marxist and a member of the political Red (Rodt) party, a revolutionary socialist party in Norway. He has been a pro-Palestinian activist since the 1970's and travelled to Lebanon in support of the Palestinians during the first Lebanon war in 1982. He has long been a vocal opponent of Israel and the U.S. Gilbert has acknowledged that he cannot separate politics from medicine, stating, "there is little in medicine that is not politics." He even criticizes the group Doctors Without Borders for providing medical assistance to both sides in a conflict instead of taking a strong stance and supporting only one party. In a 2006 article in Nordlys, journalist Ivan Kristoffersen lamented the fact that Gilbert allows his humanitarian efforts to be politicized by his radical agenda.

And by pure coincidence he shows up in this video made by a guy who also hosts Hamas web sites?

BTW, the links in that quote lead back to Norwegian language articles, so if someone who reads Norwegian can verify the translation I'd appreciate it.

and i find he is strange, would be interesting what doctor on this bord think.

Seconded, any MDs want to comment? Or even nurses or anyone else with a medical background?

 

[WildCat]

I believe that if someone wished to fake the death of a child, they could have made the video more bloody and more graphic.

But it would be quite difficult to convincingly fake a wound. Note the video doesn't show any wounds at all, and we get only a glimpse of the actual body in the hospital. The Arab media has never shied away from showing the most gruesome images before, so I doubt it was self-censorship. If Channel 4 has more complete footage they aren't talking.

There are plenty of dead kids in Gaza from which to choose. You have not presented me with any compelling reason to doubt its authenticity.

Like I said before, this combination of doctor and cameraman just stinks to high heaven.

 

[Leif Roar]

He admits he mixes politics with medicine to push his agenda:

Mmmmnnja... sort of, but not really.

The first item is technically correct, but a little imprecise. The translation isn't wrong, but it is uncharitable and loses some subtleties and context. Gilbert isn't saying that he personally can't separate medicine and politics, but that medicine and politics are inseperable. I.e. that medical assistance always has a political element to it.

The second item is exaggerating and going further than what the source supports In the original article, there is no mention of Gilbert opposing Doctors Without Borders for providing succor to both sides in the conflicts as claimed, only that he opposes them for being apolitical and refusing to take any position on the conflicts they work within.

The third item is fundamentally accurate I suppose, but rather irrelevant: the refered article is essentially a personal political disagreement of Kristoffersen's with Gilbert, and the disagreement relates to Gilbert's opposition to Doctors Without Borders that was previously covered.

And by pure coincidence he shows up in this video made by a guy who also hosts Hamas web sites?

I must admit I don't see anything strange about a doctor who is working at a hospital in Gaza showing up in a video from a hospital in Gaza.

 

[Leif Roar]

IIRC Israel never had more than 600 or so ground troops in Lebanon. They have 10,000 in Gaza.

There were four Israeli divisions involved in the operation"Changing Direction 11" in the final days of the war. I suspect that amounts to slightly more than 600 ground troops.

 

[Camillus]

As an expert in resuscitation with experience of dealing with bomb and gunshot victims I've had a look at the video and come to the conclusion that I can't say categorically one way or the other whether it's faked because there's not enough raw footage of the attempted resuscitation.

However there is nothing that obviously screams fake. The doctor performing chest compression is going too fast and his technique is poor but that's very common in clinical events so it's not a huge red flag. It looks like the child has tracheal tube because I can see the ties in place and when they are wrapping the corpse there is green ventilation bag on the bed. I'd guess that the third person, wearing green, who is seen in the video is an anaesthetist.

In a child the depth of chest compression is recommended as one-third the diameter of the chest but it can be very difficult to see chest deflection if you don't have a good view.

 

[gumboot]

There were four Israeli divisions involved in the operation"Changing Direction 11" in the final days of the war. I suspect that amounts to slightly more than 600 ground troops.

I believe the strength of that offensive was about 30,000 troops.

 

[WildCat]

Mmmmnnja... sort of, but not really.

The first item is technically correct, but a little imprecise. The translation isn't wrong, but it is uncharitable and loses some subtleties and context. Gilbert isn't saying that he personally can't separate medicine and politics, but that medicine and politics are inseperable. I.e. that medical assistance always has a political element to it.

The second item is exaggerating and going further than what the source supports In the original article, there is no mention of Gilbert opposing Doctors Without Borders for providing succor to both sides in the conflicts as claimed, only that he opposes them for being apolitical and refusing to take any position on the conflicts they work within.

The third item is fundamentally accurate I suppose, but rather irrelevant: the refered article is essentially a personal political disagreement of Kristoffersen's with Gilbert, and the disagreement relates to Gilbert's opposition to Doctors Without Borders that was previously covered.

Thanks for the clarification Leif.

I must admit I don't see anything strange about a doctor who is working at a hospital in Gaza showing up in a video from a hospital in Gaza.

This guy seems to be all over the news though.

There were four Israeli divisions involved in the operation"Changing Direction 11" in the final days of the war. I suspect that amounts to slightly more than 600 ground troops.

Oops, I meant 6000. My keyboard hasn't been the same since my g/f pulled all the keys out to clean it.

But I've since found a source that says it was at least 10,000. I doubt Hezbollah owned up to all their losses though, they've been pretty quiet since then aside from running their mouths.

 

[LongFuzzy]

I wonder if the child had already died, and they just recreated the scene for the video?
-LF

 

[Beerina]

I'd have to defer to an actual doctor on whether he was doing chest compressions too wimpily (and could he possibly be doing a (perhaps useless) slight compression for air, which some other culture might do?)

It did seem like the way Hollywood does them when the "injured" is a real human, though.

 

[a_unique_person]

He admits he mixes politics with medicine to push his agenda:

And by pure coincidence he shows up in this video made by a guy who also hosts Hamas web sites?

BTW, the links in that quote lead back to Norwegian language articles, so if someone who reads Norwegian can verify the translation I'd appreciate it.


Seconded, any MDs want to comment? Or even nurses or anyone else with a medical background?

Camera spun a translation. What a surprise. Maybe they should rethink about "A".

 

[DC]

I'd have to defer to an actual doctor on whether he was doing chest compressions too wimpily (and could he possibly be doing a (perhaps useless) slight compression for air, which some other culture might do?)

It did seem like the way Hollywood does them when the "injured" is a real human, though.

i found ER far more convincing and there i knew its faked

 

[gdnp]

i found ER far more convincing and there i knew its faked

Well, they have the advantage of being able to use special effects and do multiple takes.

Sometimes real life does not live up to Hollywood myths.