It is not typical for a voice to make you sob uncontrollably in despair the very moment you hear it – but five-year-old Hind Rajab's was a cruel exception.
From a very young age, I learnt that the place my ancestors lived, loved and even painstakingly planted olive trees in wasn't mine to be familiar with. The only stories about Palestine that my father or grandmother would tell me were prompted by my persistent questions, coaxed out over a cup of sage tea. Otherwise, the memories were simply too painful to bring up in casual conversation.
Still, the sound of news on the television filled my family's home every waking moment, taking in endless strikes, mass casualties and shaky ceasefires. It was no surprise when I eventually decided to go down the journalism route.
As I sat down to watch the UAE premiere of The Voice of Hind Rajab at Cinema Akil in Dubai's Alserkal Avenue on Thursday, I had one thought racing through my mind: I was about to hear Hind's voice calling for help. I'd heard it before, but that was when she was still alive in January 2024. I knew now she would not be saved in time.
When snippets of recordings from Hind's calls with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were published on social media, I was unable to bring myself to listen to them without taking a moment to step away and breathe. When it became too much, I would scroll past, guilt and terror settling in the pit of my stomach as I waited for good news.
But I couldn't look away this time.
Hind's haunting voice resounded in the theatre, begging for help, unable to fathom why the people who were supposed to save her couldn't just come. It was even more haunting to learn how close the PRC were – only eight minutes away from the car Hind hid in for six hours before she was killed.
To my horror, what I didn't expect to feel during the film was hope. As the ambulance approached Hind's location, I found myself hoping she'd be rescued until the nauseating reality hit just a moment later that this will never be the case.
Hind Rajab's story is unlike any other, yet much too similar to that of every Palestinian child who has been reduced to a mere number by Israel's war.
As I went on later that year to report on Gaza, I spoke to families whose lives were destroyed by the war, and medics whose efforts could never match the level of carnage they faced on a daily basis. It was clear that Hind's story was not a singular event, but a reflection of the monumental scale of sheer injustice ingrained in the very fabric of being Palestinian.
It's been more than two years since the conflict began, and although a ceasefire is now in place, Palestinians continue to be killed daily, with no real end in sight.
The truth is, Hind could have been saved, just like many others in her position. The film is loud and clear in this message.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is not only cinematic – it is a documentation of the Palestinian cause and the perseverance of a nation.
And while I sat in that theatre hearing Hind's voice as she uttered her final known words, a grim realisation set in: thousands of Palestinian children have been in her place with no one to hear them. And the injustice only continues to prevail.
