Gaza mother hopes Venice film about slain child helps end war

The mother of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, hopes that a film about her final moments, to be screened Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival, would help end the war.

Rajab’s body was recovered from a car riddled with bullets in Gaza City days after she was last heard from, in a desperate, hours-long phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on January 29, 2024.

She had made the emergency call after her family’s car came under fire during an attempt to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli advance in the Palestinian territory’s north.

Her death sparked international outrage and calls for an independent investigation, and the original audio recordings of her emergency call has been incorporated into “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” one of 21 features competing at the Venice festival.

“I hope this film will help stop this destructive war and save the other children of Gaza,” her mother Wissam Hamada told AFP by phone from Gaza City in a call ahead of the premiere in the Italian city.

“My daughter Hind’s voice has become heard all over the world and she will never be forgotten,” the 29-year-old mother said.

To Hamada, who lost her husband a year ago, their slain daughter “is just one case among thousands”.

Her death has grabbed international attention, but “why didn’t the world act to save other parents and children?” said the mother, who now lives with her five-year-old son.

“The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything. It’s a huge betrayal.”

“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, recounts the last hours of the girl’s life using the original recordings, with the family’s permission according to Hamada.

Rajab’s body was eventually recovered along with six relatives and two Red Crescent rescue workers sent to find her.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the circumstances of Hind Rajab’s death were “still being reviewed”, without giving further details.

It has never announced a formal investigation into the case.

Ben Hania said in a statement to the Venice Film Festival that after hearing excerpts from Rajab’s calls for help, she immediately contacted the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

“I spoke at length with Hind’s mother, with the real people who were on the other end of that call, those who tried to help her. I listened, I cried, I wrote,” she said.