‘Israeli tanks are coming, save me’ cries of a missing Palestinian girl

Six-year-old Hind Rajab’s voice was last heard when she was trapped in a car hit by an Israeli attack amid the bodies of her close relatives during the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza.

Her grandfather, Baha Hamada, one of the last people to speak to Hind, said: ‘She was scared and distraught and her back, her hands and her feet were bleeding from wounds.’

‘She kept asking me to come and take her away,’ he said through tears.

The narrow Gaza Strip has been devastated since the Israeli offensive began nearly four months ago. Bodies are decomposing on the streets and under bombed-out buildings.

Gaza City has been largely cut off from the southern part of the Strip for weeks, and the United Nations has repeatedly protested the difficulty of delivering aid to the millions of people living in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip.

Hind was in the car with her grandfather Hamada’s brother Bashar, her sister-in-law and other children as they tried to leave Gaza City after the Israeli army arrived a week ago.

Hamada said he got in the way of Israeli tanks that targeted his car.

They said they were initially able to speak to Bashar’s daughter Layan, who told them that her parents and three of her brothers had been killed, but that she and Hind had survived the attack.

Hamada, 58, said: ‘We tried to calm him down and told him we were calling an ambulance, but when Palestinian Red Crescent aid workers spoke to 15-year-old Layan on the phone, he said the conversation was over. During the call, there was a sound of gunshots and the call was disconnected.

Both Hamada and the Red Crescent say that Layan was killed by Israeli fire while speaking.

“While the ambulance was going there, Hind’s mother was talking to him on the phone,” Hamada told AFP. The girl told her mother she could see an ambulance, her mother heard a car door open and then lost contact.’

Since then, no one has been in touch with the Indian or Red Crescent Ambulance crews who rushed to rescue him.

The Red Crescent said in a statement on social media on Monday that team members Yusuf Zaino and Ahmed Almdhowan, who went to rescue six-year-old Hind Rajab, have been missing for seven days.

The organization called on the international community to “immediately intervene on the (Israeli) authorities to provide information about the Indian and rescue team members.”

Hamada himself has taken refuge in the southern city of Rafah. He said, ‘We want to know his condition, whether he is alive or not. I can’t imagine her alone among the corpses, without food or drink and in the freezing cold. Dogs and cats are eating the corpses.’

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, since October, Israel’s destructive air, sea and land operations in Gaza have killed approximately 27,500 people, most of whom are women and children.

Besides Hamada’s brother and sister-in-law, five children between the ages of four and 15 were in the car. His three-year-old grandson and his parents are trapped in Gaza City.

“Hind is my first granddaughter and she is a piece of my heart,” he said.

In the pictures shared by the grandfather, the baby girl can be seen posing for the camera while smiling in colorful party clothes.

Struggling to hold back tears, Hamada recalled the moments of their last conversation with her granddaughter.

He said: ‘She was telling me she was scared and hungry. She was asking us to save her. She was telling me that the tanks were approaching.’

Join Independent Urdu’s WhatsApp channel for authentic news and current affairs analysis Click here.