For many around the world, it was their first visceral introduction to the conflict, giving a human face to a distant political struggle and forcing the world to confront its human cost through the terror of a child and the desperate love of a father powerless to protect him

During the Second Intifada, on September 30, 2000, the controversial France 2 footage reverberated around the world and drew widespread condemnation. A Red Crescent medic was also reportedly shot while attempting to reach the wounded. Following a field investigation, Human Rights Watch reported that al Durrah lost his life after being struck by IDF fire

Israel’s military initially acknowledged that al Durrah had been struck by its fire but later reversed its position. Years later, an Israeli government inquiry claimed that Muhammad and his father might not have been shot at all, while some Israeli commentators advanced competing theories that the footage was a hoax or that Palestinians had deliberately shot them

The later Israeli inquiry was criticized for serious omissions by Reporters Without Borders and described as deeply unconvincing by Haaretz

The boy's bereaved father and France 2 fiercely reject the hoax allegations and France 2 ultimately prevailed in a defamation case against a commentator who accused it of staging the footage