Sometimes the worst monsters ain’t the ones creeping under
your bed or skulking in some backwoods swamp—they’re the ones walking Main
Street at high noon, wearing uniforms, waving flags, and smiling like they
ain’t done a damn thing wrong. Sometimes they’re the ones that walk in
daylight, the ones with badges and orders and big machines that can turn a
child into a memory faster than you can say “jackknife.”
That’s what I keep thinking about when I consider what
happened to little Hind Rajab. Five years old. Just a kid. The kind who
probably still believed in whatever passes for the Tooth Fairy in Gaza. The
kind who wore a plastic crown and giggled at silly faces.
(You know the type. We all do. And that’s what makes this
story hurt so goddamn much.)
It was January 29, 2024, one of those mornings where the sky
isn’t really sky anymore but a churning canvas of smoke and ash. The air in Tel
al-Hawa tasted like cordite and fear, the kind that sticks to the roof of your
mouth no matter how many times you swallow. The kind that turns your insides to
ice water.
The black Kia Picanto—a toy of a car, really—crawled along
the broken streets. Inside were Hind, her uncle, her aunt, and four cousins.
Regular folks doing what regular folks do when hell comes to their doorstep:
they run. They try to escape. That’s a universal truth, whether you’re fleeing
from a haunted hotel off Route 66 or a war zone in the Middle East. When death
comes knocking, you don’t invite it in for tea.
They were following evacuation orders. Doing what they were
told. Isn’t that something? The cosmic joke of obedience. Sometimes it’s the
rule-followers who get the rawest deal of all.
(I’ve seen it before. Haven’t you? The ones who cross at the
crosswalk get hit by the drunk driver. The universe has a sick sense of humor
that way.)
The Israeli tank from the 401st Brigade was waiting—a metal
behemoth hulking in the gray morning, its cannon like the eye of some ancient
god watching the approach of sacrifices. Modern warfare has its own kind of
dark magic: thermal imaging, night vision, advanced optics. The soldiers inside
that tank—they saw. They knew. A civilian car. Children inside.
That’s the part that keeps you up at night, isn’t it? The
knowing.
The first burst came without warning. Not a warning shot.
Not a chance to surrender. Just the sudden, teeth-rattling BRAAAAAAP of
a machine gun unleashing hell. The bullets didn’t just hit the car; they
violated it, tore through metal and glass and flesh with the indifferent hunger
of locusts.
Three hundred and thirty-five bullets. Count them.
Three-three-five. That’s not combat. That’s not warfare. That’s rage. That’s
something else entirely.
Hind’s uncle, aunt, and three cousins died instantly, their
bodies slumping like marionettes with cut strings. Blood doesn’t look like it
does in the movies. It’s darker. Thicker. And there’s always so much more of it
than you expect.
Only Hind and her fifteen-year-old cousin Layan survived
that first barrage. Imagine that moment—the ringing in your ears, the acrid
smell of gunpowder, the warmth of fresh blood soaking into your clothes, and
the terrible stillness of the bodies around you.
Layan, God bless her teenage soul, did what kids these days
do in an emergency. She grabbed a phone and called for help. The Palestine Red
Crescent Society picked up.
“The tank is so close!” The words tumbled out between sobs
and gasps. “They’re shooting at us!”
(I’ve heard fear in voices before. Written about it plenty.
But there’s a particular pitch to genuine terror that no writer can properly
capture. It vibrates in a frequency that bypasses your ears and goes straight
to your lizard brain.)
Before the operator could do more than note the
location—near the Fares gas station—another burst of gunfire cut through the
air. And through Layan.
Then it was just Hind. Five years old. Surrounded by the
cooling bodies of her family. Bleeding from her hand, her back, her leg.
She picked up the phone.
For three hours—THREE HOURS—this child spoke to strangers on
the other end of a phone line. She pleaded for her mother. She cried. She
recited verses from the Quran that she’d memorized in her short life. All while
trapped in a bullet-riddled car that had become a coffin for everyone she was
traveling with.
“I’m so scared,” she said. Her voice small but clear. The
kind of voice that should be asking for a bedtime story or an extra cookie, not
begging strangers to save her life. “Please come. Pick me up. Please, will you
come?”
(Those words. Christ. Those words will follow you into
dreams.)
The Red Crescent coordinated with the Gaza Health Ministry
and the Israeli military. Safe passage was granted. An ambulance was dispatched
around 6:00 PM, after sunset. Medics Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun
climbed into their vehicle—clearly marked with the red crescent—and headed
toward the location.
They almost made it.
Almost is the cruelest word in any language, isn’t it?
Almost safe. Almost rescued. Almost survived.
The medics reported seeing laser beams—the kind that precede
gunfire—seconds before communication was lost. An explosion. Gunfire. Then
silence.
And Hind waited. And waited. And waited.
(This is where, in one of my stories, I might introduce
something supernatural. A helpful ghost, perhaps. A moment of inexplicable
mercy from the universe. But reality is crueler than fiction. Reality doesn’t
care about satisfying endings.)
Twelve days passed before anyone could reach that street
again. When Israeli forces withdrew from Tel al-Hawa on February 10, local
residents approached the scene. What they found was something out of the
darkest corners of human capability.
Inside the bullet-riddled Kia, they found what remained of
Hind, Layan, and their family members. Nearby, the burned-out shell of an
ambulance contained the remains of the two brave medics who had tried to save a
little girl.
Born on May 3, 2018. Dead on January 29, 2024. Hind Rajab’s
entire existence on this troubled planet of ours spanned less time than it
takes most people to pay off a car loan.
Her mother later showed reporters a photo of Hind in a
kindergarten graduation gown. “They killed her twice,” she said. The first
death was the bullets. The second was the waiting.
(I’ve written about evil before. Written about the darkness
that lives in human hearts. But there’s something particularly obscene about a
child left to die slowly, calling for help that never arrives.)
The IDF denied involvement at first. Said no forces were in
the area. Said they were “unaware of the incident.” Said they were “still
investigating.” They published a press release about operations in Tel al-Hawa
that day, then deleted it when questions started coming.
(The covering up is always so predictable, isn’t it? As if
erasing words could erase deeds.)
Independent investigations by Al Jazeera, The Washington
Post, Sky News, and Forensic Architecture used satellite imagery, audio
analysis, and geolocation to prove what anyone with half a brain already knew:
the IDF was there. Their tanks were there. Their soldiers saw that car and the
people inside it.
The audio analysis of Layan’s phone call captured 64 shots
fired in 6 seconds—a rate matching Israeli military weapons like the M4 carbine
and the machine gun mounted on Merkava tanks.
Three hundred and thirty-five bullet holes in a tiny Kia
Picanto. From just 13 to 23 meters away. The forensic experts said, “It is
implausible the shooter couldn’t see civilians inside.”
(Sometimes the most horrifying truth is the most obvious
one.)
Evidence suggested the car was later pushed by a heavy
vehicle—likely an Israeli bulldozer—and the ambulance was hit by what appeared
to be a tank projectile. Fragments of a U.S.-made M830A1 round were found at
the scene.
In Bradford, they built a replica of the family’s car,
complete with 335 mock bullet holes, to mark what would have been Hind’s
seventh birthday. At Columbia University, protesting students temporarily
renamed Hamilton Hall as “Hind’s Hall.” Her name became a rallying cry, a
symbol, a song.
But symbols don’t breathe. Symbols don’t grow up to become
doctors or teachers or mothers. Symbols don’t wear toy crowns and giggle at
silly faces.
The 335 bullets that tore through that small black car didn’t
just kill a family. They ripped holes in our collective humanity. They shredded
whatever thin veneer of civilization we pretend protects the innocent from the
worst of what we can do to each other.
And somewhere in whatever exists beyond this life, a
five-year-old girl is still waiting for someone to come and pick her up. Still
asking, “Please, will you come?”
And the most terrifying question isn’t whether anyone is
listening.
It’s whether anyone cares.
(That’s the real horror story, folks. And we’re all still
living in it.)
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