Hind Rajab

On January 29, 2024, six-year-old Hind Rajab was fleeing the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City by car with her uncle’s family when the vehicle came under fire. Her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada, wounded and surrounded by the bodies of her family, called the Palestine Red Crescent Society; after Layan went silent under a burst of gunfire captured on the call, Hind spent hours on the line with dispatchers, begging to be rescued. The Red Crescent coordinated a route with the Israeli military and sent an ambulance; contact with the two paramedics, Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, was lost shortly after they arrived. Twelve days later, on February 10, relatives reaching the area after Israeli forces withdrew found Hind’s body in the bullet-riddled Kia with six members of her family, and the ambulance destroyed nearby with the paramedics’ bodies inside.

A June 2024 investigation by Forensic Architecture, Earshot and Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines found the car had been hit by 335 bullets and concluded that an Israeli tank — positioned only 13 to 23 metres away — fired the shots, making it implausible that the shooters could not see the car held civilians, including children. The investigation also concluded a tank shell hit the ambulance. A Washington Post investigation in April 2024, using satellite imagery, had already established that Israeli armored vehicles were in the area at the time, contradicting the Israeli military’s statement that its forces were not present; fragments of a U.S.-made tank projectile were found at the ambulance site.

The killing drew worldwide outrage. The U.S. State Department and the UN called for an investigation, and the case later inspired the Oscar-nominated film “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” The Hind Rajab Foundation, a legal advocacy group named for her, has pursued war-crimes cases against Israeli suspects abroad, and U.S. lawmakers have introduced a “Justice for Hind Rajab Act” demanding a U.S. government investigation.

Sources

• The Killing of Hind Rajab — Forensic Architecture
• The killing of Layan Hamada and Hind Rajab — Earshot
• Hind Rajab’s killing: a visual timeline — The Washington Post
• ‘I’m so scared, please come’: Hind Rajab, six, found dead in Gaza 12 days after cry for help — The Guardian