‘I was so scared’: Gaza girl, 6, found dead weeks after pleading for help

UNICEF says Gaza’s children are dying at an “alarming rate”.

Six-year-old Hind Rajab was left alone, frightened and injured when her family’s car was attacked in war-torn Gaza City, surrounded by the bodies of her dead relatives. Pleading for someone to rescue her.

“I’m scared,” she said in a desperate phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. “Please call someone to pick me up.”

But after more than two weeks of frantic efforts, Hind’s body was discovered on Saturday, and her relatives and two PRCS rescuers were sent to search for her.

Aid agencies and the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip confirmed the grim findings and blamed Israeli forces.

Palestinian group Hamas urged rights groups and the international community to document what it called a “horrible crime.”

Hind’s case comes as aid agencies warn that children and families are bearing the brunt of Israel’s war with Hamas.

UNICEF says Gaza’s children are dying at an “alarming rate”.

Thousands of people have died, many have been injured and others are at risk due to a lack of food, water and medicine, UNICEF said.

Hind was last missing when they were trapped in the family’s car with other relatives as they tried to flee Gaza City to escape an Israeli offensive.

“Hinder and the others in the car were martyred,” the girl’s grandfather Baha Hamada told AFP on Saturday.

He said some family members who went to Gaza City’s Tel Hawa area to search for the vehicle discovered it near a gas station where it was last seen.

“They were able to reach the area because the Israeli troops withdrew at dawn today,” added Hamada, who was one of the last people to speak to the girl on the phone.

“She was killed by (Israeli) occupying forces in her car outside a gas station in Tel Hawa,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that despite “prior coordination” to allow the ambulance to pass, the Israeli military “deliberately targeted the ambulance as it arrived at the scene”.

Earlier this week, family members said the group spotted the path of Israeli tanks and were shot at as they tried to escape.

-“She’s scared”-

Hind initially survived the shooting and managed to speak to family members on the phone and make emergency calls, PRCS announced on February 3.

“For more than three hours, Hinde desperately begged for rescue from surrounding occupation (Israeli) tanks, endured gunfire and the fear of being alone, trapped among the bodies of her loved ones, and shot by Israeli forces before her eyes. Kill,” added.

The group said that although an ambulance was sent to pick her up, the young girl was never heard from again. Her grandfather said she suffered injuries to her back, hands and feet.

“She was scared, so scared,” he told AFP, sobbing.

“Cinder is my first grandchild and she is my sweetheart.”

The Israeli army had no comment when contacted by AFP.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which killed about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched a massive military offensive in Gaza, which the Health Ministry said has killed at least 27,947 people, mostly women and children.

Children in Gaza need “life-saving support” due to the “catastrophic impact” of hostilities, UNICEF said on Wednesday.

There are an estimated 1.7 million displaced people in Gaza, half of whom are children. “They do not have enough water, food, fuel and medicine,” the agency said Wednesday.

“Their homes were destroyed; their families were torn apart.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)