The Voice of Hind Rajab
On January 29, 2024, a five-year-old girl named Hind Rajab was trapped in a car in northern Gaza, surrounded by the bloody corpses of her relatives. They had been shot to death by the IDF, Israel’s military. We know this because Hind was on the phone with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), begging for rescue for over three hours.
The PRCS office taking her call was in the West Bank, some 52 miles away. An ambulance was stationed at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, barely two miles from the scene.
An IDF tank was positioned metres in front of the car where Hind Rajab was. It is not possible that the soldiers did not know there were people in the car. They did not kill everyone at once.
The PRCS had first been alerted by Hind’s uncle in Germany. An operator first spoke to Layan Hamada, Hind’s 15 year old cousin. Layan cried as she told the operator that a tank was right next to them and they were being shot at.
At the time of that call Layan and Hind were the only ones still alive. Layan’s father, mother and her three siblings were already dead.
Shots rang out
Shots rang out, Layan screamed and the line on Layan’s side fell silent. The operator in the PRCS thought there were no survivors and was traumatised by what he had just heard. Hind’s uncle contacted the PRCS again to let them know a 5 year old girl was still alive in the car.
Hind Rajab was still alive. The PRCS reestablished contact and over the next three and a half hours Hind stayed on the phone with the PRCS asking for someone to come and get her.
She cried, she prayed and she chatted with the operators as they tried to distract her from the horror that surrounded her. Mostly though she begged to be rescued. And asked why they didn’t come.
Every so often shots rang out. We now know 355 bullets hit the car Hind Rajab was in. Eventually one hit her and she lay wounded, surrounded by her dead and bloody relatives, on the line to the PRCS.
Why did the soldiers not save her?
Because of the technology in modern tanks, it is impossible to believe the soldiers did not know there was someone alive in the car. Someone small and child-like.
While the IDF may not have deliberately targeted the car or its occupants, they obviously didn’t care who the occupants were and whether they were killed.
Maybe the first killings were accidental. But why weren’t Layan and Hind pulled from the car and saved? If you aren’t asking this question you aren’t seeing that everyone involved in this was human.
Why was it so difficult for the PRCS to get an ambulance to Hind Rajab?
The IDF had just designated the area a closed military zone. The Hamada family, with their three daughters, son and their young niece, were trying to evacuate as quickly as they could.
The PRCS spent over 3 hours attempting to coordinate safe passage for their rescuers with the IDF through mediators including international, Israeli and Palestinian agencies.
The two paramedics with the ambulance were the last team the PRCS had left in northern Gaza. All the other rescuers had already been killed on other rescue missions. The office was determined to get the route secured and agreed to.
Their efforts to help Hind Rajab began at 3pm. At 5:40pm the IDF gave the green light for the route the ambulance at al-Ahli Hospital would take.
The ambulance made its way with some difficulty because of the destruction on the route.
Contact with the ambulance was lost about 50 metres from Hind Rajab’s location.
The operators at PRCS and Hind’s family lost contact with her at 7:30pm.
12 days later, when the IDF withdrew from the area, the ambulance was found burnt out. Nearly nothing was left of the bodies of Youssef Zaïno and Ahmed al Madhoun, the two paramedics who attempted to rescue Hind.
The Hamada’s car was a shot-through wreck. The bodies were badly decomposed and difficult to identify.
How did Hind Rajab die?
Before I ask this I must extend my deepest condolences to Hind’s mother and brother, not just for the loss of Hind Rajab but for all the losses they have endured. I am so sorry. Hind’s mother, Wesam Hamada, wrote a piece for the New York Times, please read it.
This is an awful question to ask and I don’t want to cause anyone pain by asking it. But I think we must ask it. Did she die on the phone to family or those trying to rescue her? I hope so. Or did a little girl who was afraid of the dark, wait in a shot-through car, with no food or water, with a dead phone, surrounded by the corpses of her uncle, aunt and cousins, as soldiers continued to fire and ignore signs of life from the car?
It’s horrific. And if you are trying to somehow argue or rationalise why this occurred, stop. Just stop.
Let Hind Rajab’s Voice Be Heard
The Voice of Hind Rajab is a movie about what happened that day. It’s told from the perspective of the staff at the PRCS office in the West Bank and it uses the actual recordings of the conversations with Layan and Hind. Actors play the part of the PRCS staff but you hear their real voices, which are young and scared, pleading for rescue.
You watch how difficult it is to coordinate something that should be simple – get an ambulance to travel 8 minutes to save a young child. And it brings home to you one of the worst aspects of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and their territories. They control access. Not just in times of military operations but all the time. They control access and they can and do limit and block access for people, for aid, for everything that essential and necessary for Palestinians living there.
And while Israel is the state that is perpetrating these crimes, it is our world that is facilitating them.
Let Palestinian Voices Be Heard and Listened To
Another thing this film reminded me of is that the people of Gaza had created beautiful lives for themselves. The neighbourhood the Hamada family lived in was beautiful – before it was razed to the ground.
Gaza has been rightly called an open-air prison since Israel instituted a blockade of the strip by land and sea in 2007, in the wake of Hamas gaining power there. I condemn Hamas’s terror attacks and their authoritarian rule, which denied Gazans further elections.
But that is not the point I want to make here. It’s that despite being an open air prison, the people of Gaza had wonderful schools, hospitals, cultural and sports centres. They will rebuild. But our world must finally insist on a just and equitable treatment of Palestinians. Palestinians should have full control over their territories.
And Israel must not be allowed to block access to those territories. Let the aid in. Fully. Let reporters in. Freely. Let’s hear directly from Palestinians. Not just through social media platforms but from reporters on mainstream media who are reporting directly from Gaza.
Stop telling us that night is day and day is night. Stop calling a ceasefire successful which has seen nearly 500 Palestinians killed. Let the reporters in. Let’s hear it in real time from Palestinians. Please.
I’m very grateful that filmmakers chose to make this film and to let us hear the voice of Hind Rajab. And I urge everyone to go see it, if you can. But I want to hear the voices of the men, women and children living through this and what they want to happen.