Audio of six-year-old’s rescue pleas released
The sound of gunshots and the smell of death surrounded six-year-old Hind, who was under a barrage of fire as she waited to be rescued while some of her dead family members lay beside her in their car in Gaza city.
In a widely shared audio clip released by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, her elder sister Layan is making a frantic call to paramedics asking for help.
Gunfire can be heard in the background. Layan repeats that Israeli tanks are approaching the car, before sending a piercing scream down the line to the PRCS team in Ramallah.
“Hello? Hello?” says the central operations room officer on the other end of the line. But the worst happened. By the time the team calls back, the voice on the line is a much younger one.
It is Hind.
She stays on the phone for two hours while paramedics in Gaza wait to be authorised to even start moving towards the location.
“Come take me. How far is your house away from me?” Hind innocently asks response co-ordinator Rana Al Faqeh.
“It’s getting dark,” she would later say as she waits. “I’m afraid of the dark.”
Hind’s fate remains unknown, as is that of the driver and paramedic who left the PRCS base at Al Ahli Arab Hospital, using the only ambulance still running in Gaza city, more than three days ago.
“We hope they’ve just been arrested,” Osama Al Kahlout, who heads the PRCS operations room in southern Gaza, told The National.
Shooting directly at civilians is a war crime, according to international law. The conversation was painful to recount for the emergency workers who spoke to Hind.
Ms Al Faqeh said the child would cry, scream, gain strength then become silent.
“Is there gunfire around you?” Ms Al Faqeh asks. “Yes! Take me,” Hind says. “I want to take you but it’s not in my hands right now,” Ms Al Faqeh responds.
“My emotions are very mixed,” Ms Al Faqeh said.
Hearing the voice of that little girl and not being able to do anything about it but stay on the line was a painful experience, she said.
Omar Al Qam, another responder who spoke to Layan, said his emotional state was at “rock bottom” after receiving the call.
“Being in a situation where someone is begging you for help and not being able to do anything about it … it’s depressing,” he said.
The rescue team has been unreachable since attempting to rescue Hind. A PRCS statement issued days after they went missing expressed “deep concern for the safety of our colleagues and Hind”.