Relatives discovered the body of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl on Saturday, along with five family members and two ambulance workers. They had all been trapped in Gaza, despite the girl’s plea for help.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance it sent to rescue Hind Rajab after she had spent hours on the phone to dispatchers begging for help. “The occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the site to rescue Hind,” the Red Crescent said in a statement.
After the Israeli occupation forces raided the PRCS Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, they stole all the keys of the ambulance vehicles and administrative vehicles, and they locked the steering wheels to prevent the staff from operating the vehicles, amidst the ongoing siege and… pic.twitter.com/DdP48MW4L6— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) February 10, 2024
‘Riddled with bullet holes’
Family members found Hind’s body along with those of her uncle and aunt and their three children still in a car near a roundabout in the Tel al-Hawa suburb of Gaza City, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported. The PCRS released a photo of the ambulance, seen almost completely burned out. Al Jazeera footage of the scene appeared to show the ambulance only steps away from the car they said the family was in, a damaged black Kia Picanto riddled with bullet holes, Reuters reported.
The plight of Hind was earlier revealed in audio clips of her terrified conversation with rescue workers 12 days ago. The audio clips released by the Red Crescent earlier this month recorded a call to dispatchers that was first made by Hind’s teenage cousin Layan Hamadeh, saying an Israeli tank was approaching before shots rang out and she screamed. Believed to be the only survivor, Hind stayed on the line for three hours with dispatchers, who tried to soothe her as they prepared to send an ambulance.
‘Come and get me’
“Come and get me,” Hind was heard crying desperately in another audio recording. “I’m so scared, please come.” The PCRS said that after coordinating with the Israeli military through mediators and receiving a green light, it determined it was safe enough to send an ambulance with two crew, Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoon. “In our last communication with the team, they said the occupation forces aimed a laser beam at them. We heard gunshots and then an explosion,” said Red Crescent spokesperson in Ramallah, Nebal Farsakh.
Contact was then lost with both the ambulance team and Hind, leaving their families, colleagues and many around the world concerned about their fate.
“While we continue to look into exactly what happened, we want to reiterate that civilians must be protected – no child should ever be terrified for their life, surrounded by the bodies of their family members,” a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters. “That these were potentially Hind’s last moments is devastating and unbearable,” the spokesperson added.
(With agency inputs)
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