Importance of viewing film on Hind Rajab
With wars, devastation, and human suffering in Iran and Lebanon now filling the headlines, it’s easy to forget the horror of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza — and Palestinians in the West Bank — over the past two and a half years.
Still in my head is an award-winning feature-length film that played at Amherst Cinema a few months ago. “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is part documentary, mostly drama with actors.
In January 2024, Hind was a nearly six-year-old Gazan girl riding in a car with five other family members. Israeli forces fired on the car, killing all but her. She was wounded, but was able to call for help on the remaining cell phone. When an ambulance was finally permitted by Israeli authorities to rescue Hind, Israeli forces attacked the car again, killing the two Palestinian EMTs, and leaving Hind to die in the car.
The whole film or just its trailer can be viewed online at the website “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” Her story is one among as many as 20,000 Gazan children killed by Israeli bombs and bullets so far. Far more have been wounded. Gaza has the horrifying distinction of having the highest rate per capita of child amputees in the world.
We cannot allow the Trump administration to keep supporting Israel’s genocidal and cruel policies with our weapons and financial support. We cannot let the so-called Board of Peace try to rebuild Gaza into a seaside playground for the rich, or build new illegal Israeli settlements. Not with nearly two million Gazans living in tents or even newly built housing that confines Palestinians to a small sliver of southern Gaza. Not over the bodies of so many Palestinians, like Hind. Not over their ancestral lands and culture of over 2,000 years.
I hope that if more people watch this film, they’ll be so moved that they’ll join me and call on Congress to stop funding genocide and support the Block U.S. Bombs to Israel bill (HR3565).
Carol Owen
Florence