Will You Come and Get Me?'

The provocative festival hit The Voice of Hind Rajab reenacts the 5-year-old girl's call to emergency dispatchers in Gaza just before she was killed.

- By E. Alex Jung

Motaz Malhees and Kaouther Ben Hania on the set.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES of Hind Rajab’s death are well documented but bear repeating.

On the morning of January 29, 2024, her family evacuates their homes in Tel al-Hawa in Gaza City. Her mother, Wesam Hamada, thinks it would be easier if Hind leaves with her aunt, uncle, and cousins, who will be taking their black Kia, while she will go by foot carrying her baby brother. During the drive, a tank shells the car, killing most of the occupants. Hind’s 15-year-old cousin, Layan, tells a dispatcher, Omar, at the Palestine Red Crescent Society, “They are shooting at us—the tank is right next to me,” before the line cuts with a fusillade of artillery.

When Omar calls back, the 5-year-old Hind picks up. Her voice is tiny and direct. She says everyone else is dead. “Will you come and get me?” she asks Rana, one of the other dispatchers. They alternate speaking with her as they wait for approval from the Israeli military to send an ambulance. The paramedics are an eight-minute drive away, but the process takes hours. Hind doesn’t understand why—and, really, it’s senseless. But they must send an ambulance along a route preapproved by an arm of Israel’s Ministry of Defense. They get the green light after sunset. As the ambulance approaches the car with Hind, a tank fires on them. Twelve days later, Hind, her family, and the paramedics, Youssef Zaino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, are found dead in an apparent attack by Israeli forces, according to forensic analysis by the Washington Post and other investigative organizations. (Israel had denied that its troops were in the area.)