“Her voice was full of sadness,” says the Red Crescent operator who received the call from little Hind

Rana spent three hours on the phone with little Hind, stuck in a car with the bodies of her loved ones before she died at the end of January.

The agony of little Hind Rajab in Gaza moved the whole world. In recordings released by the Palestinian Red Crescent, the 6-year-old girl cries for help. She is alone in the passenger compartment of a car, Monday January 29, surrounded by the remains of six members of her family. For more than three hours, she faced Israeli tanks which reportedly opened fire. On February 10, the little girl was found dead south of Gaza City, with her relatives and two paramedics who had gone to help her.

The Red Crescent in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, where franceinfo was able to go, received a first call, Monday January 29, from Layan Hamada, Hind’s cousin, aged 15. It’s Omar who answers. On the other end of the line, he heard shots and witnessed the death of the teenager. “I was in dissociation, as if my mind had left my body, I could not understand what I had just witnessed.says the volunteer. He then tries to regain his senses and resumes the call. This time, it is Hind who speaks to him. For about ten minutes, “she was able to explain to me who was around her in the car”, remembers Omar. When he understands that the little girl is surrounded by six remains in the car, he does not “can no longer continue” and asks his colleague Rana to “take over”.

“They are all sleeping.”

The exchange will last three hours. There is Hind’s terrified voice and then that of Rana who does everything she can to reassure her, but also “a drone noise and shots from time to time”explains the Red Crescent operator. “Imagine the scene, a little girl in a car full of corpses”says the one who accompanied the little girl during her last hours. “Sometimes she told me ‘they are all sleeping’. And at other times, ‘they are all dead, there is blood everywhere, there are shots’“she reports.

“Even an adult couldn’t deal with such a situation, put yourself in Hind’s shoes!”

Rana, Red Crescent operator

at franceinfo

The scene is terrible. And yet Rana maintains his composure until daylight begins to fall. Hind calls for help. “His voice was full of sadness and distress”, remembers the operator. The little girl then tells him that she is afraid of the dark. “She asked me to promise her I would get her out of there.”she explains.

Two rescuers died

“She said : ‘How soon will you be there?’ I answered ‘one hour’. Finally, an hour and a half passed and we still hadn’t sent anyone. She insisted: ‘You told me you’d be there in an hour! Where are you?'” says Rana. The operator explains that it takes time to organize coordination with Israel. The little girl asks the meaning of “coordination”. “I have been working in rescue and first aid for 13 years, I have never been so affected”breathes Rana.

Finally, the Red Crescent receives “the green light” of the Israeli army “to send an ambulance to the area where Hind was”explains Rana. “We were still online with her and in touch with our rescuers. And all of a sudden, we heard shots”she says. “We would never have thought that it was the ambulance that was targeted, it was almost at Hind’s level”she continues.

Shortly before 6 p.m., communications were interrupted with the girl and the rescuers. The two ambulances sent by the Red Crescent will never arrive. “We had no news for 12 days”, laments Rana. Behind the operator’s desk, there are now three photos. That of Hind, surrounded by the faces of two men, Youssef and Ahmed. They died the same day, 100 meters from the car in which the little girl was. They were the last Red Crescent rescuers to continue to save lives in northern Gaza. The NGO accuses the Israeli army of having targeted ambulance workers.