Missing Palestinian girl (6) found dead

[pieter]

NOS News•
yesterday, 3:26 PM

Missing Palestinian girl (6), who spent hours calling emergency services, found dead

"I'm so scared. Please come," a girl's voice sounds on the phone. “Please call someone to come get me.”

These are the words of 6-year-old Hind from Gaza, who was shot at by an Israeli tank with five family members as they fled Gaza City in a car. The fragment of her telephone conversation with an aid worker was released a week ago by the aid organization Palestinian Red Crescent. The girl's fate immediately received a lot of international attention, with the hashtag #SaveHind going around on social media.

Now family members have found her body. The bodies of her niece and several other family members were also found, as were two slain aid workers who had begun a search for Hind.

The story begins on January 29, when the family members flee Gaza City on the orders of the Israeli army. Along the way they come face to face with an Israeli tank.

Hind's niece, 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh, decides to call the Palestinian Red Crescent. "They are shooting at us. The tank is next to us," she says. “Is he very close?” she is asked. "Yes! Please come get us." The conversation is interrupted by shots. "Hello Hello....?"

Layan is killed during the conversation, as are her parents and two other children. Hind is the only one who survives the bombardment by the tank.

Young Hind takes her niece's phone in the car that was shot at and calls a counselor for hours, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. He tries to calm her down, while her location is determined in order to send an ambulance to the spot.

Search

There is no trace of the girl for days. When it seems safe and after approval from the Israeli authorities, the Red Crescent will send two rescuers to the area to look for Hind. But the rescuers soon also go missing.

According to one of the relatives who found the bodies, the family's car was riddled with bullets. The family members were now able to reach the area in Gaza City because Israeli forces recently withdrew.

The bodies of the rescuers have also been found. They were lying near the car. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, their ambulance was deliberately targeted by the Israeli army. The aid organization says that it was agreed in advance with the Israeli army where exactly the rescuers would go to save Hind.

Israel has not yet responded to questions from international media about the incidents.

Hind's mother told CNN that she waited every second for her daughter's return. She hopes her daughter is in a good place and says Hind had a dream to become a doctor.

The Palestinian Red Crescent praised the work of the killed rescuers, writing: "Hind tragically lost her life after hours of pleading with our teams for help in a terrified and desperate voice."

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Feb 10, 2024

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says the body of a six-year-old girl who had begged Gaza rescuers to send help after being trapped by Israeli fire has been recovered - alongside five family members and two ambulance workers who went to save her.

The PRCS accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance sent to rescue Hind Rajab after she spent hours on the phone to dispatchers pleading for help, with the sound of shooting echoing in the background, around 12 days ago.

The Israel Defence Forces told Sky News it was looking into the incident.

[Jaga]

Pieter, this is one of many tragic stories of innocent civilians killed in Gaza. Now Israel is trying to kill even more people in Rafah, the last city where over million Gazan found shelter. Even US is against it. Netanyahu pre-emptively said that there would be no any cease-fire even before Blinken visit.

What Israel is doing - is killing all people in Gaza, destroying all infrastructure. It is a genocide in XXI century.

www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68247050
The US has warned Israel that staging a military offensive into Gaza's southern city of Rafah without proper planning would be a "disaster".

Some 1.5 million Palestinians are surviving in the city bordering Egypt in dire humanitarian conditions.
The White House said it would not support major operations without due consideration for the refugees there.
The comments come days after Israel's leader said the military had been told to prepare to operate in Rafah.
Speaking on Thursday evening, and without referring to Rafah, US President Joe Biden said Israel's actions in Gaza had been "over the top".
Reported Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Friday killed at least 15 people including eight in Rafah, officials from the Hamas-run health ministry said. Israel did not immediately comment.
Salem El-Rayyes, a freelance journalist living at a camp for displaced people in Rafah, said children were among those killed when an air strike hit a house nearby. Bodies of the victims "flew from the third floor", he told Reuters.
Most of the people in Rafah have been displaced by fighting from other parts of Gaza and are living in tents.
Garda al-Kourd, a mother-of-two who said she had been displaced six times during the war, said she was expecting an Israeli assault but hoped there would be a ceasefire agreement before it happened.
"If they come to Rafah, it will be the end for us, like we are waiting for death. We have no other place to go," she told the BBC from a relative's house in Rafah where she was living with 20 other people.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, told the BBC that such an operation in Rafah - which he called "the world's biggest displacement camp" - would be a catastrophe.
"There are people on their flimsy plastic sheeting. They are fighting for food. There is no drinking water. There is epidemic disease and then they [the IDF] want to bring a war to this place. You can't make it up really," he said.