Come and get me: phone plea by Gaza girl, 6, in car with dead family
Palestinian Red Crescent releases audio of child’s call as it demands answers from Israeli military
A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl and the paramedics who tried to save her are missing in Gaza after she made a desperate plea by phone from a car where she was trapped with the dead bodies of six family members.
Audio was released of Hind Rajab’s phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS), in which she explained her family were killed by gunfire.
“I’m telling you they’re dead,” she says in her last known words.
She then described how the “The tank is next to me… it’s coming towards me… it’s very, very close.”
Hind was the only survivor after her extended family’s black Kia Picanto came under fire on Jan 29 , reportedly killing her mother’s uncle, Basar Hamada, his wife Anam and their four children.
The relatives are understood to have been fleeing their neighbourhood after an order from the Israeli military had ordered an evacuation.
As they fled south the car is thought to have met Israeli tanks, and pulled into a petrol station for safety when they came under fire. Israel says it is not aware of the incident.
The PRCS initially got in touch with Hind’s cousin, Layan,15, who was with her in the car.
Layan was screaming in terror when she answered the phone.
“They are firing at us,” she said. “The tank is next to me.”
In an audio recording of the phone call translated into English by PRCS, the call handler can be heard asking Layan if she’s hiding. There is then a loud sound of gunfire and the phone goes dead.
When the handler called back Hind picked up, who was put on the phone to PRCS coordinator Rana Alfaqeh.
Ms Alfaqeh asked if Hind had tried to wake her family up, to which Hind responded: “I’m telling you they’re dead.”
Hind repeatedly begged Ms Alfaqeh to “come and get me”.
In the audio recording of the phone call, Hind says: “I’m so scared please come” and “come take me, will you come and take me?”
The distressed little girl had stayed on the phone with PRCS staff for more than three hours as she begged to be rescued and told them she was scared of the dark. Paramedics were dispatched in an ambulance to rescue Hind, but lost contact with their colleagues after they arrived at the vehicle at around 6pm.
The organisation has posted a string of messages seeking information about the ambulance workers and Hind.
“Are they still alive? We want to know their fate,” the PRCS team said.
“The fate of our colleagues Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Al-madhoon from the PRCS EMS team who went to rescue 6-year-old Hind remains unknown for seven days.”
Hind was put in contact with the PRCS team in Ramallah after Layan called her uncle from the car to say they had been struck and her parents and siblings were dead. She said she was bleeding and Hind was the only survivor.
Battling patchy phone signal in Gaza, the uncle called relative Mohammed Salem Hamada, who lives in Frankfurt, Germany, who in turn called the aid organisation.
“They were driving a black Kia Picanto and the car was targeted. Some of the people were killed inside,” he told on duty dispatcher Omar al-qam, the Washington Post reported.
During the last phone call, Hind is understood to have started to grow distant and frustrated that nobody had come to save her.
The PRCS located the car near Al-azhar University and waited for permission from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the ambulance to enter a closed military zone.
The dispatchers managed to patch the phone call through to Hind’s mother who was sheltering elsewhere in Gaza City and Hind told her “I miss you mama”.
Three hours after they received the phone call the dispatchers said they received permission to send paramedics to Hind and Israeli authorities provided a map for them to follow.
As dispatchers approached the vehicle at around 6pm they said there was “heavy gunfire”. The line was then lost with Hind, whose last sentence was “come and take me”.
Hind’s mother told Al Jazeera one of the last things Hind said to her was, “Don’t leave me, mama. I’m hungry. I’m hurt.”
There has been no word from the ambulance workers or Hind since, according to the charity, which has been sharing the story on social media.
The IDF told the Washington Post it was “unfamiliar with the incident described.” The PRCS has urged the international community to pressure the Israeli military to account for what happened.
‘They are firing at us. The tank is next to me… it’s coming towards me… it’s very, very close’