Sky News journo tweets deceptively edited shooting video

On Friday at around 4:00 p.m., a Palestinian in the West Bank town of Huwara tried to enter an Israeli car and attack the driver.  The terrorist spotted Border Police officers nearby, and stabbed one of them in the face (see photo below). Another officer tried to arrest the terrorist, who then tried to grab the officer’s gun.  Fearing for his life, the officer shot and killed the terrorist.

At 4:30 p.m., about 40 minutes after the incident, Mohammed el-Kurd, an anti-Israel propagandist from east Jerusalem, tweeted 23 seconds of the “execution” video, showing just the shooting but not the fight and attempt to steal the weapon.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM THIS VIDEO. EXECUTION FROM POINT BLANK RANGE. THIS IS THE ISRAEL THAT THE WORLD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. 🤬 pic.twitter.com/ePELGkU58O

— Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) December 2, 2022

(As our readers likely know, El-Kurd, a overtly antisemitic and pro-terror activist, has a history of circulating such deceptive videos.)

At 6:09 p.m., that same deceptively edited video was tweeted by Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK.

At around 6:15 p.m., the Israeli Police put out a statement and twitter thread on the incident:

1/5 Terrorist Neutralized in the area of Huwara: Today at approximately 16:00, a Palestinian terrorist armed with a knife tried to break into a vehicle of an Israeli couple in the area of Huwara pic.twitter.com/MwMGAXGWfg

— Israel Police (@israelpolice) December 2, 2022

At 8:08 p.m., nearly two hours after the Israeli Police statement and tweet, Sky News US correspondent Mark Stone – previously their Middle East correspondent – quote tweeted Zomlot, along with another angle of the shooting in a second tweet which also omitted the events prior to the shooting.

Another angle of the shooting here pic.twitter.com/O49sIhGHrA

— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) December 2, 2022

At 8:28 p.m., former IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner responded to Stone’s tweet, showing the Sky journalist the full unedited video.

I can confidently say that any AAR will determine that the officer acted with distinction. Here’s a longer version showing 2 other Palestinians trying to snatch the rifle. I’ve criticized the IDF on issues of transparency since my retirement, this isn’t one of those times. pic.twitter.com/t3SbHJXHrx

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 2, 2022

At 8:43 p.m – two and a half hours after the Israeli Police statement – Stone finally tweeted full video by Lerner.

Response here from former IDF spokesman https://t.co/ErC6fauAmS

— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) December 2, 2022

However, it wasn’t merely a “response” by Lerner. It was proof that the video Stone circulated to his 73,000 followers represented a lie – a clip intentionally edited to falsely suggest that the Israeli soldier ‘executed’ a Palestinian for no reason.

During Stone’s previously stint as Middle East reporter, we revealed that he at times showed a similar to rush to judgement against Israel, failing to temper his visceral reactions to violent incidents with enough due diligence to accurately verify the actual sequence of events.  He also once evoked an antisemitic trope about the ‘root cause’ of antisemitism, in a tweet he subsequently was forced to delete.

We similarly call upon Stone to delete the initial deceptively edited video he tweeted of Friday’s terror incident, and apologise for the error.

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