The sound of loud applause and chants of “Free, Free Palestine” against the backdrop of Palestinian flags filled the room as the feature film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, recounting the final moments of a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City last year, received a 23-minute standing ovation at its premier at the Venice Film Festival.
The emotional docudrama by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, features the actual recordings of Rajab pleading for help during a phone call with medics, before the vehicle she was in was reportedly hit with over 300 bullets.
The five-year-old Palestinian girl was killed by Israeli soldiers in January 2024 alongside six of her family members. Hind and her family had been fleeing Gaza City when Israeli forces shelled their vehicle, killing her uncle, aunt and three cousins.
Hind and her cousin had initially survived and contacted the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) by phone from the car to seek help. The car was later found with Hind and the paramedics who had come to help, all shot dead. The incident sparked global protest, including at Columbia University, where students renamed Hamilton Hall as Hind’s Hall.
Israeli officials denied their involvement, saying an initial investigation showed that troops were not present in the area where Hind and other family members were killed. The statement contradicted the circulating phone call between Rajab and PRCS, who accused Israel of deliberately targeting the medical team.
In original recordings taken from the attack on January 29, 2024, Rajab is heard sobbing and telling the PRCS, “Please come to me, please come. I’m scared,” while bullets were fired in the background.
Speaking about her film ahead of the premiere, director Ben Hania said: “I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes. That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us.”
“I believe that fiction (especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events) is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia,” she said.
Hind’s mother, Wissam Hamada, told the AFP news agency that she hoped the film would help end the war.
“The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything,” Hamada told AFP by phone from Gaza City, where she lives with her five-year-old son.
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