On Sunday, Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), sent a Tweet noting the supposed anniversary of the death of the child Mohammad al-Dura, “who was murdered by Israeli soldiers eighteen years ago.” But, as Awad surely knows, it has long since been demonstrated that Dura was not murdered or even injured on that day. Rather, the France2 news channel had shown deceptively edited footage of the then-twelve-year-old Dura and falsely claimed that he had been shot by the IDF on the third day of rioting at the start of the second intifada. The story of Dura’s “murder”—not unlike the ritual-murder accusations of the Middle Ages—sparked mob violence against Jews in Europe; it was also used to justify suicide bombings in Israel. Richard Landes recalls being among the first to see the original and complete raw footage:

What I saw astonished me. In scene after scene, Palestinians staged scenes of battle, injury, ambulance evacuation, and panicked flight, which the cameramen deliberately filmed, all the while standing around in front of the Israeli position, completely unafraid. To judge by [the France2 cameraman Talal] Abu Rahma’s 21 minutes of film, and a Reuters cameraman’s two hours, [Ramallah’s] Netzarim Junction that day . . . was the site of multiple makeshift stages upon which cameramen, most Palestinian, some foreign, filmed “action sequences” performed by everyone from military men with guns to teenagers and kids standing by.

At one point in our viewing, a very large man grabbed his leg and began to limp badly. Perhaps he had not faked his injury convincingly enough, perhaps his size discouraged anyone from picking him up. In any case, only children gathered around, whom he shooed away, and, after looking to see no one was coming, he walked away without a limp. . . .

When Landes asked Charles Enderlin, the France2 correspondent who aired the story—and who has persisted in defending it—about the faked injuries, he responded, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s a cultural thing.” Landes writes:

The TV news media were “in” on a secret that they kept from the public. Palestinians faked scenes and journalists regularly edited that footage, taking small, believable soundbites and stringing them together to present the Palestinian narrative of victimization by the Israeli Goliath. . . . Thus, talented, respected journalists like Enderlin, perhaps unaware, perhaps unconcerned, perhaps just glad to have material, could offer stories of clashes between Palestinian children throwing rocks and Israelis soldiers armed to the teeth, and pepper them with high casualty figures for the [alleged] Palestinian victims, all to the background footage of injury and evacuation. . . . So far as Enderlin was concerned, the Durah story was believable precisely because it “corresponded to the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the time.”

Between December 27 and January 6, terrorists in Gaza fired rockets at Israel almost every night. On Monday, one rocket struck a home in the much-bombarded town of Sderot, although no one was injured. The rocket fire had largely halted last spring, and for some time barrages were often the result of Israeli forces closing in a Hamas unit or munitions depot. But the truth—which gives credence to Ran Baratz’s argument in his January essay that the IDF is struggling to accomplish its mission—is that Hamas has been able to rebuild. Yoni Ben Menachem writes that the jihadist group has been “producing hundreds of new rockets using lathes smuggled into tunnels that remain operational in Gaza.” Moreover, it has been replenishing its ranks:

According to Israeli security officials, Hamas has recruited approximately 4,000 new fighters over the past month. This rapid expansion bolsters its fighting capabilities and complicates Israel’s efforts to apply military pressure on Hamas to expedite a hostage deal. Hamas’s military recovery has allowed it to prolong its war of attrition against the IDF and adopt tougher stances in hostage negotiations. The funds for this recruitment effort are reportedly from the sale of humanitarian-aid packages, which Hamas forcibly seizes and resells in Gaza’s markets.

In fact, Ben Menachem writes, Hamas’s rocket fire is part of the same strategy:

By firing rockets, Hamas seeks to demonstrate its resilience and operational capability despite the IDF’s prolonged offensive. This message is aimed at both Gaza’s residents and the Israeli public, underscoring that Hamas remains a significant force even after enduring heavy losses [and] that Israel cannot easily occupy this region, currently a focal point of IDF operations.