It felt like she was asking me to save her': the film based on a five-year-old Palestinian girl's dying pleas

"When Kaouther Ben Hania heard Hind Rajab's voice for the first time, she was in Los Angeles airport scrolling through social media. The five-year-old's cry for help cut through the clamour around her. This was in February 2024 and Hind had already been dead for at least a week, left to bleed out among the corpses of six of her relatives after their car was targeted by an Israeli tank, leaving it with 335 bullet holes, according to the Forensic Architecture research group."

"More than 20,000 Palestinian children were killed in two years of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, according to UN estimates. Another 82 have been killed since 10 October when a ceasefire was declared and then routinely breached. The pictures of the dead have often been published online, including those of Hind, showing her dressed in pink with a floral tiara, or smiling in an oversized academic cap and gown, but her voice also remains to haunt the world after her death."

"The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) posted audio recordings of her last hours, made by the organisation's emergency call centre via a mobile phone in the car, as Hind repeatedly, desperately, appealed for someone to rescue her. On the same recording, we can hear the increasingly fraught workers at the centre promising her that help would soon be on the way."

"When Ben Hania heard Hind's voice, it brought her to an abrupt halt in the airport terminal, as travellers milled around her. This was a young child calling on adults to protect her amid the appeal of Palestine to be saved from genocide and on both counts, the world had failed. When I heard her voice, for that millisecond, it felt as if she was asking me to save her, she says. There was something very immediate in her voice, and it was very shocking."

Kaouther Ben Hania encountered audio of five-year-old Hind Rajab pleading for rescue while at Los Angeles airport. Hind had already been dead for at least a week after her family's car was struck by an Israeli tank, which research found riddled with 335 bullet holes. The Palestine Red Crescent Society released emergency call-centre recordings of Hind's final hours in which she repeatedly begged for help while increasingly fraught workers promised assistance. UN estimates cite more than 20,000 Palestinian child deaths during two years of bombardment, with additional deaths following a breached ceasefire on 10 October. The recordings and images of the dead circulated widely.

Read at www.theguardian.com