Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.
The Voice of Hind Rajab has been nominated for an Academy Award for best international feature, a recognition for the Tunisian film that features the voice of a 5-year-old girl whose phone call begging for help was heard across the world before she was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The film is a mix of a documentary and drama that weaves in the recordings of Hind’s phone call along with scripted, dramatized scenes of Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers as they agonized over trying to save her. It was nominated alongside four other films.
“This nomination belongs first to Hind. To her voice. To what should never have happened and yet did,” said director Kaouther Ben Hania, a Tunisian filmmaker, in response to the nomination. Ben Hania is also known for her film The Man Who Sold His Skin, which was nominated for a foreign film Oscar in 2021.
The announcement comes just a week before the second anniversary of Hind’s killing on January 29, 2024.
When The Voice of Hind Rajab premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, the film received the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history, lasting 23 minutes. It has been hailed as a crucial entry into the stories of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Hind, who would be 7 years old now, was in a car with six members of her family traveling in Gaza City when Israeli tanks confronted them and killed the others in the car, including her 15-year-old cousin, Layan Hamada.
The young girl, pleading with operators for help and to see her mom, was trapped in the car for hours with the bodies of her slain relatives. The operators — knowing the risks of sending help with an active Israeli military presence — reassured her and prayed with her.
Eventually, Israeli soldiers also killed Hind. Analysts found that an Israeli tank fired 335 bullets into the car. Later, survivors found her body, as well as those of the rescuers sent to save her, also killed by Israeli soldiers.
The heartbreaking audio of Hind’s phone calls, published by the Palestinian Red Crescent, circulated widely online, and Hind has become a symbol of the heinous nature of Israel’s violence amid the genocide.
Ben Hania has said she felt spurred to action when she first heard the audio of the phone call.
“When I heard her voice, I was in a period asking myself about: What does it mean to tell stories when the unthinkable is happening?” Ben Hania said in an interview with Democracy Now!. “I did this movie to honor her voice, but also to tell this incredible story of those heroes, trying to save lives in impossible conditions.”
Last year, another film about Israeli violence against Palestinians, No Other Land, won the Oscar for best documentary feature. The film, which was made in a collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, showed co-director Basel Adra’s attempts to protect his community in the occupied West Bank, Masafer Yatta, as it came under increasing destruction and violence by Israeli forces and settlers.
After the Oscar win, however, Israeli settlers and soldiers intensified their building of illegal settlements in Masafer Yatta, and targeted the Palestinians who helped make the film. They raided the home of Adra, abducted and beat filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, and even killed activist Awdah Hathaleen.
Speaking against the authoritarian crackdown
In the midst of a nationwide attack on civil liberties, Truthout urgently needs your help.
Journalism is a critical tool in the fight against Trump and his extremist agenda. The right wing knows this — that’s why they’ve taken over many legacy media publications.
But we won’t let truth be replaced by propaganda. As the Trump administration works to silence dissent, please support nonprofit independent journalism. Truthout is almost entirely funded by individual giving, so a one-time or monthly donation goes a long way. Click below to sustain our work.