The post by
the Palestine Red Crescent was a haunting plea, hoping to learn the fate of
three people not heard from for five days.
“Where is
Hind? Where are Ahmed and Yousef? We need to know,” it said.
اضافة اعلان
Two of the
group’s rescuers were dispatched Monday to find six-year-old Hind Rajab,
believed to be trapped in a vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip with several
dead family members.
The Red
Crescent said one of its workers had spoken extensively by phone with Hind on
Monday and that it believed that all six of her relatives inside the vehicle
with her had been killed that same day by Israeli fire.
Israeli
Occupation Forces (IOF) said it was not aware of the incident.
The Red
Crescent said in a statement Saturday evening, “118 hours have passed, and the
fate of the PRCS ambulance team, Yousef Zeino, and Ahmed al Madhoun, who went
to rescue the 6-year-old girl, Hind, remains unknown.”
It was the
latest in a series of desperate posts the aid organization has put out daily
since the rescuers went missing, counting the hours since their disappearance
to draw attention to the plight of all three.
The Red
Crescent said a response coordinator, Rana al-Faqeh, had spoken to Hind for
more than three hours Monday afternoon, trying to soothe the frightened child.
“Come get
me,” Hind pleaded, according to an audio recording of the conversation released
on social media Tuesday by the Red Crescent. “I’m scared. Please come. Please
call someone to come get me.” The recording could not be independently
verified.
As the sun
went down, Hind told al-Faqeh that she was afraid of the dark. Al-Faqeh told
reporters that she sought to reassure Hind, saying they were trying to send
people to rescue her.
After
al-Faqeh spoke to Hind, the Red Crescent sent the two rescuers in an ambulance
to her vehicle in Gaza City, which was near a gas station. The rescuers
confirmed that they arrived at about 6 p.m. Monday.
Then they
lost contact and have not been heard from since.
The Red
Crescent said it had coordinated the movements of the ambulance with the
Israeli military, which invaded Gaza after the October 7 attack on Israel by
Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls the territory. Similar
coordination is done by other aid organizations operating in Gaza, including UN
agencies.
The Red
Crescent has called on the international community to pressure the Israeli
military to account for what happened.
The group
said it first learned of Hind’s plight from her family members elsewhere in
Gaza City. They gave the organization the phone number of someone inside the
car.
In an
interview with Al Jazeera Arabic aired Wednesday, Hind’s mother said she had
spoken Monday to her daughter and an older cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh,
who was with her in the car.
The Red
Crescent; Hind’s mother, who was not named in the interview; and an uncle,
Issam Hamadeh, who was also interviewed by Al Jazeera, all said that Layan’s
parents and her three siblings were killed.
The Red
Crescent said it also spoke briefly to Layan on Monday. When she answered the
phone, she was panicked, according to another audio recording posted Tuesday by
the organization on social media.
“They are
shooting at us. The tank is next to us,” Layan said on the recording, which
could not be independently verified. Then a barrage of shooting is heard. She
screams before the line goes silent.
The Red
Crescent said it believed that Layan, too, had been killed. Hind’s mother said
in the Al Jazeera interview that her daughter also told her Layan was dead.
Hind’s
mother told Al Jazeera that she tried to calm her daughter by reciting verses
from the Quran and praying. But she had to hang up so the Red Crescent could
call Hind and figure out where she was.
Her mother
said one of the last things Hind said to her was, “Don’t leave me, mama. I’m
hungry. I’m hurt.”
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