CNN republishes fake atrocity video (sourced from Hamas’ webmaster)

Yesterday evening, I wrote about CNN’s use of an obvious fake video ( see here : http://hotair.com/archives/2009/01/08/cnn-stung-by-fake-atrocity-video), sourced from Hamas’ webmaster, of an alleged Israeli attack on two young boys playing on a roof. After being exposed by blogs, CNN took the video down without any explanation. As of 4:30 pm ET today, though, the video has returned to CNN’s site ( SEE HERE : http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/01/07/holmes.gaza.boy.cnn ), although they seem to have turned off the embedding for it. This version did get onto YouTube earlier — in fact, we used that to discuss this on today’s TEMS episode:

There are several points that clearly show this to be a fake. Yesterday I wrote about the doctors and the ridiculous effort at CPR, plus the inclusion of notorious pro-Hamas activist Mads Gilbert. When Duane and I looked at this again, we saw a few other points as well.

* Take a look at the blood on the operating table. For penetrating wounds, there is almost no blood, and what little there is looks washed out — almost orange. The body should have been covered in blood, and much more than that should have transferred to the sheets, especially if someone was giving CPR. * The video alleges that the Israelis used a missile from an unmanned drone to attack the rooftop, but look carefully at that roof. A missile hitting that roof would have left much more than a six-inch-diameter impact crater, even if it didn’t explode. * Also, the plastic chair is sitting normally in the blast zone, and the clothes remain on the clothesline in the background. A missile blast that killed two boys on that roof would have done much more extensive damage.

It’s not only a fake, it’s an absurd fake. It’s not even done well, and Gilbert’s dramatic headshake at the end of the supposed CPR — in which Doctor #2’s hands keep coming off the body — is only the cheesy coup de grace. Why did CNN republish this?

Update: And as soon as I wrote this, HA reader Pete L sends me CNN’s explanation:

There’s no truth to accusations by bloggers that a Palestinian camera crew staged a video showing the death of the videographer’s brother after an Israeli rocket attack, said the team’s employer.

“It’s absolute nonsense,” Paul Martin, co-owner of World News and Features, said of accusations leveled by bloggers at videographer Ashraf Mashharawi.

“He’s a man of enormous integrity and would never get involved with any sort of manipulation of images, let alone when the person dying is his own brother,” Martin said. “I know the whole family. I know them very well. … [Mashharawi] is upset and angry that anyone would think of him having done anything like this. … This is ridiculous. He’s independent.”

Maybe Martin can explain how a missile hits a roof and kills two boys but does no more damage to the roof than what a pickaxe could do in five minutes — and how the furniture didn’t get disturbed.

Some other things that look suspicious:

Where is the neck collar on the patient? How do they know he wasn't tossed by the explosion? He could've suffered spinal injury. If there is no obvious trauma (entry/exit wound) on the neck, and no need for an airway there, the collar stays on until they do x rays. However, if he had life threatening trauma - puncture wounds and blast damage to the lungs, they wouldn't be running him off to x ray. So there should be a collar on the kid.

Where is the oxygen mask? Why aren't they bagging him? The P part of CPR is pulmonary - lungs/breathing. Why is no-one helping the patient get O2? ER docs run the ABCs - Airway, Breathing, Circulation. These guys are only working (badly) on circulation. Sheesh, even the actors on ER do a better job of selling it.

Why is a supposed doctor doing CPR all wrong, with jello arms?

For doctors treating a trauma patient, these two remained remarkably clean - no blood on them. No blood on the sheets. The first thing a trauma team is going to do is roll the body side to side to find the extent of the wounds - entry/exit points. There is no blood to indicate this happened.

The supposed blood is orange. Everything else in the video has the expected hues/tint. Human blood soaked into sheets is dark, very dark.

Where is the rest of the trauma team? Why is it only these two working on the patient?

All in all, if that kid had been near a missile blast, these two would've killed him with their supposed "treatment."

How about that blast zone...Wait, what blast zone? Anyone see any carbon buildup, any heat effects? The only blast effects visible are about what you'd expect a guy could do with a pick-axe.

Where are the missile pieces? Oddly enough, usually some fairly large pieces of the missile (mostly the back end, missile motor casing) survive the blast of the warhead. This is particularly true of a fragmentation warhead that is shaped to expend most of its energy turning the warhead casing into fragments. The extremely tough motor casing usually comes apart into fairly large pieces. Where are they, why isn't the "journalist" pointing them out as evidence?

There are marks on the plastic chair, can't tell if they are supposed to be holes or what. Are we really supposed to believe that chair survived just a few feet away from a blast that broke concrete and pock-marked the block wall? If that chair had been anywhere near the blast it would be shredded, and blown completely across the roof. Why would they right it and bring it back over near the impact point, unless it was staged? If you found a chair tipped over, you'd right it roughly where it was. The location of the intact chair was way to close to the supposed blast.

All in all this video is a joke. No, it is an insult. CNN is beyond stupid in airing this. Can the Israelis sue CNN for reckless disregard and negligence? Libel?

“All in all this video is a joke.”

Another observance. The Doctor keeps pointing to the beeping heart/vital signs monitor.

Why?

No patch contacts are on the boy, thus useless as an broken clock.

He later starts applying them but in an emergency situation with presumably major wounds, heart monitoring would be secondary to stopping bleeding / wound care.

Also with wounds that are life threatening one could expect at least some blood splatter. Not horror movie puddles but at least on the gloves, sleeves, etc...

As for the missile, I wound think the type the Israelis use would shred a child, even with an indirect hit.

However an thrown together,homemade rocket assembled with unreliable materials could certainly fall short of it's intended target and kill Palestinians instead of Israelis.

I think the boy is indeed dead but the video was an reenactment for use against Israel.

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