29 January 2024
What is known about the sequence
On 29 January 2024, Hind Rajab (then about five or six years old) was in a car with several family members in the Tel al-Hawa area of Gaza City as they attempted to leave. The vehicle came under fire. Multiple relatives were killed in that initial attack. Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan initially survived.
Layan made contact with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Gunfire is audible on the recording; Layan was killed. Hind remained on the line with PRCS dispatchers for an extended period—reports describe roughly three hours of intermittent contact—pleading for someone to come, describing tanks nearby, and expressing fear as it grew dark.
After prolonged efforts to coordinate safe passage (including reported communication through Israeli channels such as COGAT), an ambulance with two PRCS paramedics, Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, was dispatched in the early evening. Contact with the ambulance was lost near the location amid reports of gunfire or an explosion.
The bodies of Hind, the family members in the car, and the two paramedics were recovered around 10 February 2024, after Israeli forces withdrew from the immediate area. The family car showed extensive bullet damage (independent analyses, including by Forensic Architecture, cited a very high number of rounds). The ambulance was destroyed; several technical examinations found damage consistent with a large-calibre weapon or tank round.
On the “double-tap” characterization
Some investigations and advocacy analyses (notably by Avaaz and others) describe the overall pattern as a double-tap: an initial lethal strike on the civilian vehicle, followed hours later by the striking of the ambulance that had been coordinated to reach the same location. The time gap, the reported prior coordination for the ambulance, and the destruction of the clearly marked medical vehicle are central to that characterization.
Israel initially stated that its forces were not present in the immediate area. In August 2026 the Israeli military acknowledged that its troops had fired on the vehicle carrying Hind and her family and on the ambulance, citing failures in coordination of the ambulance’s movement, and said it had opened a criminal investigation by its military police. Independent reporting using satellite imagery, audio analysis, and forensic examination of the vehicles had earlier placed Israeli armored forces in the vicinity and attributed the fire to them.
The term “double-tap” is therefore used by some sources to describe the sequence; the underlying reported facts are the initial attack on the car, Hind’s prolonged survival and phone contact, the coordinated dispatch of the ambulance, and the subsequent destruction of that ambulance with the deaths of the paramedics.
What the film shows
The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania) is a docudrama set almost entirely inside the PRCS emergency call centre. It uses the real audio of Hind’s (and related) calls. Actors portray the dispatchers as they try to keep Hind on the line, secure permission for an ambulance, and then lose contact.
The film does not primarily stage or visually reconstruct the two physical strikes as battlefield events. The initial attack on the car is largely conveyed through the audio and the dispatchers’ reactions. The fate of the ambulance is shown through the loss of communication and later confirmation rather than as a detailed visual depiction of the second strike. The dramatic and ethical force of the film lies in the sustained presence of the child’s voice and the helplessness of the people on the other end of the line, not in a dual reenactment of the attacks themselves.
This is the reported sequence as it stands from available investigations, contemporaneous accounts, and the later Israeli acknowledgment. Details of exact timing, lines of fire, and command decisions remain matters of ongoing dispute and investigation.
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My elevator shows me the news snippets. Today apart from sports, one of the news snippets was about a film that has been accepted as a late entry into the Venice Film Festival. A film named NAZA and it’s not a reference either to Jesus or the Nazis.
NAZA (sometimes styled Naza) is a new documentary directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — two of the co-directors of the Oscar-winning No Other Land. It was a late addition to the 2026 Venice Film Festival main competition and is scheduled to premiere on 10 September. It is the only feature documentary in competition this year. The film is produced by The Guardian and James Wilson, with Jonathan Glazer as executive producer. According to the festival and producers, it examines systems and decision-making related to civilian deaths in Israeli military operations in Gaza, building on earlier investigative reporting by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian.
The title does not come from “Nazarene,” nor is it presented as a reference to the Nazis. Multiple reports state that “NAZA” is a military acronym used (according to the filmmakers and producers) by Israeli intelligence as a euphemism for the expected number of civilian casualties in an airstrike — essentially a term tied to collateral-damage estimates. That is the explanation given for the name.
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