Hind and Lian … Desperate Calls for Help

For 12 days, harrowing audio recordings of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, calling for help has shocked the world before finding her little body along with five other members of her family inside a car destroyed and riddled with Israeli bullets in Gaza City.

“Please come take me … I beg you… please come… call anyone to come and get me… please” screamed Hind in a crackling voice heard in an audio recording between Hind and her mother before the phone line was cut. The same thing happened in a call between the emergency services and Hind’s 14-year-old cousin, Lian, who was with her in the car, and her screams for help disappeared amid the sound of Israeli gunfire.

On 10 February 2024, 6-year-old Hind was found dead along with her cousins 12 days after her heart-wrenching calls for help and being terrified and trapped with her dead relatives in a car surrounded by Israeli tanks. All that time, none could reach Hind and rescue her.

Beginning of Tragedy

The Tragic story began in the afternoon of 29 January 2024 when Bashar Hamadah drove his civilian black car with his wife and children: Lian (14), Raghad (13) and Mohammed (11), and his brother’s, Bahaa, granddaughter, Hind Rajab. They were fleeing the area after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) ordered the residents of west Gaza City to evacuate to the south in a ground operation to find themselves in the line of Israeli fire.

The Israeli tanks, which invaded the “Financial Roundabout” area in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwestern Gaza City, targeted Hamadah’s car near Faris Gas Station, where he tried to seek refuge from the tanks.

Her Voice Lost Forever

In a recording publicly shared by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), Lian made a desperate call for help saying, “we need help … they are shooting at us … we are inside the car and there is a tank next to us,” before the conversation ended with the sound of heavy gunfire and Lian’s screaming. Lian’s voice will disappear forever after she was killed by the Israeli gunfire which has also killed her sister, Raghad, and the rest of her family.

“Come take me”

Later, Hind could use the phone and call her family asking for help over and over again. She said that all her relatives who were with her got killed.

Her mom, who is a psychologist, said: “Hind told me (according to a recording published on 30 January) that Lian got killed, and she was injured in her hand, back and leg, but she’s still alive. She told me she was scared and wanted us to come and get her. I tried to keep my Hind calm and told her that PRCS was coordinating for the paramedics to reach the location and rescue her.”

For more than three hours, the PRCS team remained in contact with Hind to calm her down amid her continuous pleas to evacuate her from the car. According to the PRCS, it had been coordinated via the Palestinian Liaison to allow ambulances to access the location.

Upon the coordination, at around 18:00 on that day, a PRCS ambulance travelling 2 paramedics, Yousif Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, to the area, where Hind was trapped in the car that came under fire near Faris Gas Station in Gaza. However, PRCS lost contact with the 2 paramedics.

All the interaction Gone in Vain

The next day, 30 January 2024, the PRCS publicly shared Lian and Hind’s calls for helps that have shocked the whole world, going viral on social media and widely broadcasted on international news, without changing anything in reaching the two girls’ location or even knowing the fate of the paramedics dispatched to rescue Hind.

For days, PRCS has intentionally highlighted for how many hours they had lost contact with the paramedics without being able to guarantee access to the location where the car was targeted.

IOF’s redeployment from west Gaza on Saturday 10 February 2024 allowed people to move in the area, unfolding a painful scene. Hind’s body along with her relatives’ bodies were found decomposed in the car- its windshield and dashboard smashed and riddled with bullet holes. Their blood was everywhere in the car along with charred parts of their bodies.

Samih Hamadah, a family’s relative, confirmed finding the dead bodies of Hind and 5 other members of her family inside the car they were traveling in. He elaborated that their bodies were found decomposed 12 days after being killed by IOF’s fire.

PRCS also found the bodies of paramedics, Yousif Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, who were dispatched to save Hind following her calls for help from the PRCS and prior coordination as required by Israel to allow such missions. They were found dead in the ambulance that was targeyed by IOF only few meters away from where Bashar Hamadah’s car was. PRCS emphasized that IOF deliberately targeted the ambulance right upon its arrival to the location.

In the crime scene, traces of IOF’s tanks could be seen in the area and next to the civilian car and ambulance without IOF offering help after deliberately targeting them.

Hind and Lian’s screams will forever bear witness to thousands of crimes committed by IOF in the Gaza Strip.