Vanished in Gaza without a trace: Where are Hind and PRCS rescue team?

“They are shooting at us. The tank is next to me.” 

These were the last words said by 15-year-old Layan Hamadeh on the phone to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). 

The PRCS received the call from Layan asking for assistance after the vehicle she and her family were in, including her six-year-old sister Hind, was targeted by Israeli fire. 

A few seconds after Layan informed the PRCS that their car was surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, loud gunfire was heard, and the girl stopped answering, according to the recorded call. 

The Red Crescent reported that Layan and five other family members were killed. 

“I am so scared. Please come and take me,” said Hind, the only survivor trapped in the car in Gaza with her murdered family, begging rescuers to come and save her in a three-hour phone call with PRCS’s psychological support specialist. 

Although the Red Crescent concluded it was safe to dispatch an ambulance four hours after the call, they quickly lost communication with it and had no further contact with either the two crew members or Hind, according to Reuters.

“More than 110 hours have passed and the fate of the PRCS ambulance team, Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, who went to rescue the six-year-old girl, Hind, remains unknown,” PRCS stated in a post on X on Saturday.

Red Crescent spokesperson Nebal Farsakh told Reuters that this was just one among hundreds of this type of call that the PRCS team receives every day. In many cases, they are unable to assist since the Israeli occupation proclaims a military zone wherever its tanks are present. 

PRCS has posted a daily appeal on X to find its team: “The PRCS heroes initiated a rescue mission for Hind days ago and have not returned. Where is Hind? Where are Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoon?”