“Imagine as if you are smelling a flower. Hold your breath, now blow out the candle!”. With these words, Nisreen Qawas, a mental health expert in Ramallah, tried to do the impossible: to calm a five-year-old child who was facing death alone.

Hind Rajab was trapped in a car in Gaza City, surrounded by the dead bodies of six members of her family. Outside, an Israeli tank took aim at the bullet-riddled vehicle.

For hours, her thin voice traveled over the phone waves to the offices of the Red Crescent: “Save me… I’m dying!”. This tragic story, which shocked the world two years ago, has now returned to the spotlight through the film “Voice of Hind Rajab” by director Kaouther Ben Hania.

The film, acclaimed in Venice and nominated for an Oscar this year, is not just a dramatization. It is a documentary evidence that uses the actual audio recordings of that day. It all started on January 29, 2024. While trying to get away from the fighting, the family’s car was hit by the Israeli army.

The only ones who initially survived were Hind and her cousin, Layan. But while Layan was on the phone with emergency services, the shots were heard again. She was killed while on the line, leaving Hindi alone and terrified.

Inside the Red Crescent offices, the staff lived a parallel drama. The film portrays the clash between Omar, who wanted to send rescuers immediately, and Mahdi, the station chief, who insisted on coordinating with the Israeli army in order not to lose the rescue team.

It was a choice between life and protocol. After receiving the “green light” and determining the approved route, two paramedics, Ahmed al-Madhoun and Yusuf al-Zeino, set off towards it. But they never arrived. The ambulance was shelled en route, killing them both.

Twelve days later, when Hindi’s body was found, the car was riddled with 335 bullets. This number is the stamp of an international system that failed. Although independent investigations proved the presence of Israeli forces and prior coordination, the official response remained negative.

The Voice of Hind Rajab serves as an open indictment of the “rules-based order” that failed to protect a single child. Hind is one of the 21,000 children killed in Gaza, but her voice became the symbol of breaking Western myths about humanity.

As one of the characters in the film says: “Do you really think that the voice of a little girl will inspire their empathy?”.

Today, this film invites us to witness what the world wanted to forget. Justice for Hindi remains undecided, but her voice, preserved on magnetic tapes and displayed on the world’s screens, refuses to be silenced. /tesheshi.com/

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Source: prizrenpost