Salam Daher
Encyclopedia
Salam Daher is a Lebanese
civil defense worker who was the target of accusations by bloggers in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike on Qana
on July 30, 2006, where widely-published photographs showed him removing dead children from the rubble of a house struck by an Israeli attack.
south Lebanese town of Marjayoun
and began working as a civil defense volunteer at the age of 12. In 1986, during the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
and Lebanese civil war
of 1975-1990, he joined the civil defense service of the Lebanese interior ministry as an apprentice and worked his way up the ranks. His home town was at the centre of the 1982-2000 conflict, being the headquarters of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army
militia, and was repeatedly attacked by Palestinian
militias during the civil war and subsequently by the Hezbollah militia during Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. He moved to the coastal city of Tyre in 1996, where the influence of Hezbollah is far weaker (the city is run by Hezbollah's secular rival Amal
. By the time of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
, he was working as the head of civil defense operations for Tyre and the surrounding region, including Qana.
He has described himself as a first responder, "often the one who takes the phone call alerting the civil defense to an emergency, and he is often part of the first team to reach the site." According to the Associated Press
, which interviewed him, "when bombs strike, he races his ambulance along narrow country roads, digs through rubble and tries to save the living from flattened buildings".
Daher was mentioned by the media on a number of occasions prior to the July 30, 2006 airstrike on Qana. The Al Jazeera
network, the Lebanese Daily Star
newspaper and several other media organisations cited his casualty figures for earlier incidents in the Israeli campaign.
He has previously been seen in widely-distributed photographs of the 1996 shelling of Qana
in which 106 people were killed and 116 injured in an Israeli attack. On that occasion, he was photographed carrying the mutilated body of a child killed in the attack.
The 2006 photographs and footage led to a number of websites labelling Daher the "Green Helmet", in reference to his distinctive headgear, and accusing him of being a member of Hezbollah and of using bodies for propaganda purposes. One website published a video that it asserted showed Daher arranging for a child's body to be taken off an ambulance to be displayed for photographers. British author Richard North
asserted that Daher had taken control of the scene "to orchestrate false photo opportunities with the dead bodies". North later admitted to Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post that he had no evidence that Daher was connected to Hezbollah and, as he put it, "All I have to go on is gut instinct."
The Associated Press
, Reuters
and Agence France-Presse
news agencies, whose photographers had taken the "Green Helmet" pictures, all denied that the pictures from Qana had been staged. The Washington Post's photographer Michael Robinson-Chavez rejected the claims of staging, commenting: "Everyone was dead, many of them children. Nothing was set up. There was no way photos could have been altered with a dozen photographers there." The Post's ombudsman
, Deborah Howell
, reviewed the pictures published by the newspaper and reported that they "didn't show any obvious manipulation."
The Associated Press was eventually able to identify "Green Helmet" as Salam Daher and interviewed him twice. He strongly denied having anything to do with Hezbollah, stating that the blog allegations were not true and that he was not affiliated with any party. He told the agency: "I am just a civil defense worker. I have done this job all my life." Commenting on his display of some of the bodies at Qana, he said: "I did hold the baby up, but I was saying 'look at who the Israelis are killing. They are children. These are not fighters. They have no guns. They are children, civilians they are killing.'" He told the Associated Press that he had no regrets or apologies: "I wanted people to see who was dying. They said they were killing fighters. They killed children."
On August 13, 2006, Daher was reported to have been lightly injured in an Israeli attack near a hospital in Tyre shortly before a United Nations
-brokered ceasefire in the conflict came into effect.
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
civil defense worker who was the target of accusations by bloggers in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike on Qana
Qana
Qana also spelled Cana is a village in southern Lebanon located southeast of the city of Tyre and north of the border with Israel. The 10,000 residents of Qana are primarily Shiite Muslim although there is also a Christian community in the village....
on July 30, 2006, where widely-published photographs showed him removing dead children from the rubble of a house struck by an Israeli attack.
Background
Daher was born in 1967 in the predominately ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
south Lebanese town of Marjayoun
Marjayoun
Marjayoun is a Lebanese town and administrative district, Marjeyoun District, in the Nabatieh Governorate in Southern Lebanon...
and began working as a civil defense volunteer at the age of 12. In 1986, during the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
The South Lebanon conflict refers to nearly 20 years of warfare between the Israel Defense Force and its Lebanese proxy militias and Lebanese Muslim guerrillas led by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah within what was defined by Israelis as the "Security Zone" in South Lebanon...
and Lebanese civil war
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...
of 1975-1990, he joined the civil defense service of the Lebanese interior ministry as an apprentice and worked his way up the ranks. His home town was at the centre of the 1982-2000 conflict, being the headquarters of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army
South Lebanon Army
The South Lebanon Army , also "South Lebanese Army," was a Lebanese militia during the Lebanese Civil War. After 1979, the militia operated in southern Lebanon under the authority of Saad Haddad's Government of Free Lebanon...
militia, and was repeatedly attacked by Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
militias during the civil war and subsequently by the Hezbollah militia during Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. He moved to the coastal city of Tyre in 1996, where the influence of Hezbollah is far weaker (the city is run by Hezbollah's secular rival Amal
Amal Movement
Amal Movement is short for the Lebanese Resistance Detachments the acronym for which, in Arabic, is "amal", meaning "hope."Amal was founded in 1975 as the militia wing of the Movement of the Disinherited, a Shi'a political movement founded by Musa...
. By the time of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...
, he was working as the head of civil defense operations for Tyre and the surrounding region, including Qana.
He has described himself as a first responder, "often the one who takes the phone call alerting the civil defense to an emergency, and he is often part of the first team to reach the site." According to the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, which interviewed him, "when bombs strike, he races his ambulance along narrow country roads, digs through rubble and tries to save the living from flattened buildings".
Daher was mentioned by the media on a number of occasions prior to the July 30, 2006 airstrike on Qana. The Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
network, the Lebanese Daily Star
Daily Star (Lebanon)
The Daily Star is a pan-Middle East English language newspaper edited in Beirut. It was founded in 1952 by Kamel Mrowa, the publisher of the Arabic daily Al-Hayat to serve the growing number of expatriates brought by the oil industry...
newspaper and several other media organisations cited his casualty figures for earlier incidents in the Israeli campaign.
He has previously been seen in widely-distributed photographs of the 1996 shelling of Qana
1996 shelling of Qana
The 1996 shelling of Qana or the First Qana massacre, took place on April 18, 1996 near Qana, a village in Southern Lebanon, when artillery shells fired by the Israeli Defence Force hit a United Nations compound. Of 800 Lebanese civilians who had taken refuge in the compound, 106 were killed and...
in which 106 people were killed and 116 injured in an Israeli attack. On that occasion, he was photographed carrying the mutilated body of a child killed in the attack.
Qana controversy
On July 30, 2006, Daher was present at the scene of the Qana bombing, which occurred only about 12 km from his office at Tyre, and was photographed there by the international media. The pictures depicted him carrying dead children away from the site of the bombing, while wearing the green helmet that led to his nickname. He issued widely-quoted casualty figures for the bombing at Qana. He cited 51 fatalities including 22 children, though later reports revised this to a lower figure of 28, including 16 children.The 2006 photographs and footage led to a number of websites labelling Daher the "Green Helmet", in reference to his distinctive headgear, and accusing him of being a member of Hezbollah and of using bodies for propaganda purposes. One website published a video that it asserted showed Daher arranging for a child's body to be taken off an ambulance to be displayed for photographers. British author Richard North
Richard A. E. North
Doctor Richard Anthony Edward North is a British blogger and author. He has published books on defence and agriculture. In 2006 his blog was rated by the Financial Times as the UK's most influential political blog...
asserted that Daher had taken control of the scene "to orchestrate false photo opportunities with the dead bodies". North later admitted to Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post that he had no evidence that Daher was connected to Hezbollah and, as he put it, "All I have to go on is gut instinct."
The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
and Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
news agencies, whose photographers had taken the "Green Helmet" pictures, all denied that the pictures from Qana had been staged. The Washington Post's photographer Michael Robinson-Chavez rejected the claims of staging, commenting: "Everyone was dead, many of them children. Nothing was set up. There was no way photos could have been altered with a dozen photographers there." The Post's ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...
, Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell
Deborah Howell was a long-time newswoman and editor who served for three years as the ombudsman for The Washington Post.Howell is a Board Member In Memoriam at the IWMF ....
, reviewed the pictures published by the newspaper and reported that they "didn't show any obvious manipulation."
The Associated Press was eventually able to identify "Green Helmet" as Salam Daher and interviewed him twice. He strongly denied having anything to do with Hezbollah, stating that the blog allegations were not true and that he was not affiliated with any party. He told the agency: "I am just a civil defense worker. I have done this job all my life." Commenting on his display of some of the bodies at Qana, he said: "I did hold the baby up, but I was saying 'look at who the Israelis are killing. They are children. These are not fighters. They have no guns. They are children, civilians they are killing.'" He told the Associated Press that he had no regrets or apologies: "I wanted people to see who was dying. They said they were killing fighters. They killed children."
On August 13, 2006, Daher was reported to have been lightly injured in an Israeli attack near a hospital in Tyre shortly before a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
-brokered ceasefire in the conflict came into effect.
See also
- 2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies
- Adnan Hajj photographs controversyAdnan Hajj photographs controversyThe Adnan Hajj photographs controversy involves digitally manipulated photographs taken by Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer based in the Middle East, who had worked for Reuters over a period of more than ten years...