6 Year-Old Girl Missing in Gaza Found Dead Along with Paramedics Sent to Save Her

A six-year-old girl who went missing in Gaza City  has been found dead, along with several of her relatives and two paramedics who tried to save her.  Hind Rajab was fleeing the city with her aunt, uncle and three cousins when the car they were traveling in came face to face with Israeli tanks, and come under fire.

Audio recordings of calls between Hind and emergency call operators suggest that the six-year-old was the only one left alive in the car, hiding from Israeli forces among the bodies of her relatives.  Her pleas for someone to rescue her ended when the phone line was cut amid the sound of more gunfire.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) managed to reach the area yesterday, which had previously been closed off as an active combat zone.  They found the black Kia car Hind had been traveling in - its windscreen and dashboard smashed to pieces, bullet holes scattered across the side.

One paramedic told journalists that Hind was among the six bodies found inside the car, all of which showed signs of gunfire and shelling.  A few meters away were the remains of another vehicle - completely burnt out, its engine spilling onto the ground. This, the Red Crescent says, is the ambulance sent to fetch Hind.  Its crew - Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun - were killed when the ambulance was bombed by Israeli forces.   In a statement, the PRCS accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance, as soon as it arrived at the scene on January 29.  "The [Israeli] occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite obtaining prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the scene to rescue the child Hind," it said.

The PRCS told the BBC that it had taken several hours to coordinate access with the Israeli army, in order to send paramedics to Hind.   "We got the coordination, we got the green light," PRCS spokeswoman, Nibal Farsakh, told me earlier this week. "On arrival, [the crew] confirmed that they could see the car where Hind was trapped, and they could see her. The last thing we heard is continuous gunfire."

Recordings of Hind's conversations with call operators sparked a campaign to find out what had happened to her.   Before the little girl's body was discovered, Hind's mother said that she was waiting for her daughter "any moment, any second".   Now she is demanding that someone be held accountable.  "For every person who heard my voice and my daughter's pleading voice, yet did not rescue her, I will question them before God on the Day of Judgement," she told the BBC. "Netanyahu, Biden, and all those who collaborated against us, against Gaza and its people, I pray against them from the depths of my heart."

At the hospital where she waited for news of her daughter, Hind's mother, Wissam, still holds the little pink bag she was keeping for her. Inside it, a notebook where Hind had been practicing her handwriting.   "How many more mothers are you waiting to feel this pain? How many more children do

The rules of war say medical personnel must be protected and not targeted in a conflict, and that injured people must be given the medical care they need - to the fullest practical extent and with the least possible delay.