The Voice of Hind Rajab: An urgent docufiction that exposes the gushing wound of our collective humanity
Normally, when writing these blogs, I like to make you, the reader, imagine a fun little scenario, which I then use as an entry point to talk about the story and the characters of that week’s film. This week I will not do that.
Hind Rajab Hamada was a 5-year-old Palestinian girl, who was killed by the Israel Defence Forces in 2024. When her family was trying to flee Gaza City, their car was shelled, with six members of Hind Rajab’s family being killed. Managing to escape this first assault, Hind Rajab calls the Red Crescent begging for help. The Voice of Hind Rajab, by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters, 2023) is an urgent and heart-wrenching film centred around this call.
The film follows the Red Crescent workers who take her call, and must figure out what has happened, locate the child and understand how they can help her. Realising that Hind Rajab is only eight minutes away from them by car, Omar (Motaz Malhees), who first took her call, urges for an immediate rescuing mission. However, coordinator Madhi (Amer Hlehel) has to remind him of the protocol, and that simply calling an ambulance without first establishing a safe route with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, a unit in Israel’s Ministry of Defence, would only lead to the ambulance being shot down, and its occupants killed – a risk they can’t take.
When Medhi suggests that the best way to help Hind Rajab, would be to publicise the situation, making the international community aware of what is happening, Omar notes “Seriously? Check out social media. Look at them. Take a good look. Children’s bodies ripped apart on the side of the road. Do you really think the voice of a terrified little girl will spark their empathy?”. By setting the film in the Red Cresent office, Ben Hania prioritises exposing the violence of a whole system rather the guns, blood, and bodies we see on the news and on social media. Eight minutes. That’s how long a rescue mission should have taken. Hind Rajab was on the phone with the Red Crescent for over seventy minutes before she died.
Ben Hania makes the bold decision to use the Hind Rajab’s real voice, arguing that it would be bad taste to use a child actor only to make it easier for audiences watching this film. Even with the consent of Hind Rajab’s mother, this will surely be a decision that will be argued about for decades in the realm of film ethics; however, I say let us argue it then. For now, it is important to go through the gut-wrenching pain of hearing Hind Rajab saying “Please don’t leave me. I am afraid of the dark”, it is urgent to watch this film as it exposes a gushing wound in our collective humanity. It forces us to acknowledge it and to hurt together, so that hopefully, together, we might also, one day, heal.
The Dukes will be showing The Voice of Hind Rajab this coming week, and the screening on the Wednesday 25 of February, will feature an introductory talk by the renowned Middle Eastern Cinema scholar Maryam Ghorbankarimi who will surely help us situate this film in a larger political and cinematic landscape.
Written by João Eduardo Lima Belchior
