Palestine Red Crescent releases new audio of murdered child’s last words

By Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Palestine Red Crescent Society released a new audio recording of six-year-old Hind Rajab on Sunday documenting the moments of horror she experienced while trapped alone, surrounded by Israeli tanks and the bodies of her relatives who were killed by Israeli soldiers.

“They are dead. The tank is next to me. It is moving from the front of the car,” Hind told a Red Crescent staffer by phone.

Terrified, she added that the tank “is very close. Please, stay with me when someone comes. You can hang up, okay?”

“Hind was killed alone as the (Israeli) occupation first bombed the ambulance that was heading to rescue her, just a few meters away from her, resulting in the killing of Red Crescent paramedics Yousef Zaino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun,” the society said on X.

Among the stories etched in the world's memory is that of Hind Rajab -- a child who had not reached her seventh year before finding herself besieged by death, literally on all sides.

But the demand for accountability for her execution awaits an answer.

Hind pleaded with Red Crescent officials to rescue her from the car she was trapped in with her relatives -- all of whom were killed by Israeli army gunfire.

But the ambulance crew was unable to get to her because of the intensity of the gunfire and the targeting by the Israeli military of anything that moved.

She waited and for three hours remained on the phone with Red Crescent teams, expressing her fear.

On Feb. 12, days after her last call, an ambulance team found Hind's body. She had died the day she made her plea along with the two paramedics who had gone to rescue her.