News - Middle East: “I am so scared, please come. Please call someone to come and take me What time is it? How far is your home from me? Come and take me It is getting dark and I am afraid of the dark Take me Come take me, will you come and take me?” 

This was the heartbreaking refrain of Hind Rajab’s three-hour conversation with a Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) worker in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The PRCS staffer tried in vain to pacify the 6-year-old Hind as she found herself amid Israeli tanks indiscriminately firing artillery at their car, with the dead bodies of six of her close family members lying around her.
This tragedy unfolded on January 29 when Bashar Hamada, Hind’s maternal uncle, decided to escape the brutal bombardment of the occupying Israeli regime.
Hamada tried to flee from his home in southern Gaza to save his family from the looming threat of death that has engulfed the entire coastal territory since October 7.
On his way to a place designated “safe”, he was stopped by the Israeli army in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood in the south of the besieged strip.
The stoppage was followed by a shower of bullets at Hamada’s car, which killed him, his wife and three of their children on the spot.
Amongst Hamada’s children, only Layan survived with her cousin Hind.
Layan, a 15-year-old teenage girl had strong willpower and indomitable courage. Even though her parents were killed in cold blood after their car was shelled by the regime forces, she mustered the courage to contact the PRCS, thinking she would be rescued and would survive.
“They are shooting at us, the tank is next to me, we are in the car next to the tank,” were her words to PCRS, ending in deafening screams amid the sound of heavy gunfire.