Kaouther Ben Hania makes film from five-year-old Hind Rajab’s recorded last call

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania has made a film titled The Voice of Hind Rajab, built around the audio of five‑year‑old Hind Rajab’s final hours as recorded and posted by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Ben Hania first heard Hind’s voice in February 2024 while at Los Angeles airport and cleared her schedule to make the film.

Hind had already been dead for at least a week after the car she was in was targeted by a tank, leaving it with 335 bullet holes, according to Forensic Architecture. The PRCS had posted fragments of the call but supplied Ben Hania with the full three‑hour recording, which she described as “one of the most difficult things I’ve heard in my life.” The film is a dramatic recreation of events inside the PRCS emergency call centre: actors play the two men and two women who answered Hind’s call and respond to Hind’s own recorded voice.

The film depicts an ambulance in Gaza City described as minutes away but unable to proceed until the PRCS formally requested and waited hours for Israeli army permission; the green light ultimately arrived too late and Hind could not be saved. Ben Hania contacted Hind’s mother, Wissam Hamada, who told her she did not want her daughter to be forgotten and asked the director to make the film.

Key Topics

Culture, Kaouther Ben Hania, Hind Rajab, Palestine Red Crescent, Gaza, Israeli Army