How image of boy lying dead in father’s lap spurred second Palestinian uprising

It was 24 years ago that a Palestinian man was filmed shielding his son behind a concrete block on a street in Gaza amid a barrage of bullets fired by Israeli soldiers. After the firing spree, the 12-year-old boy was seen lying motionless across his father’s lap. The heart-wrenching incident, involving Jamal al-Durrah and his son Muhammad, became the defining image of the second Palestinian uprising.
Jamal himself was hit by 12 bullets on September 30, 2000. The potent image of the father-son duo cowering behind a concrete block amid Israeli fire was also cited by al-Qaida in the aftermath of the US 9/11 attacks.
Twenty-three years later, Jamal would go on to lose two brothers, a sister-in-law and niece during an Israeli counter to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. Jamal is one of the thousands of Palestinians reliving the horrors of the second intifada as Israel pounds Gaza to wipe out Hamas.
Disclaimer: The following video contains disturbing visuals

The day began for the father-son duo began with an outing to buy a car. Little did they know the tragedy that was about to unfold. Jamal and Muhammad travelled from their home in the Bureij refugee camp to a car market in Gaza City.
In 2000, the Gaza Strip was peppered with Israeli military checkpoints and Army posts to protect 21 Jewish settlements.
However, luck did not favour the al-Durrahs, and they had to return without buying a car. They embarked on their return journey in a taxi. The taxi, however, had to stop at Netzarim junction, located between northern and southern Gaza, as fighting had erupted between the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Palestinian youths.
Jamal and Muhammad set off to cross the Netzarim junction by foot. Amid heavy gunfire, the father-son duo took shelter behind a cement block diagonally across an Israeli military post.
“I was raising my hands and waving to ask them to stop, but they didn’t stop shooting,” Jamal recounted the incident in an interview with The Guardian in 2013.
Jamal and his son sustained fire for 45 minutes. “These seconds felt like hours, days… When he was shot by the first bullet, I was telling him, don’t be afraid, the ambulance will come. When he fell across my lap, I realised he was dead,” Jamal said.
The horrifying incident was caught on camera by a journalist working for France 2. The video showed Mohammad hiding behind his father and screaming in terror.
Jamal underwent treatment at a hospital in Jordan for three months. Two years after the incident, Jamal had another son, and he named him Muhammad.
However, the incident sparked a long and acrimonious war over the death of Muhammad. An Israeli report, commissioned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggested that the entire event might have been staged as a propaganda exercise.
However, the claims were dismissed by Jamal, Talal Abu Rahma, the cameraperson who filmed the incident, and by France 2.