Missing 6-year-old and rescue team found dead in Gaza, aid group says

A 6-year-old Palestinian girl and the two rescuers who went looking for her nearly two weeks ago were found dead Saturday, the Palestine Red Crescent said, ending a desperate effort to discover their fates.

Two rescuers with the Red Crescent were dispatched in an ambulance on the evening of Jan. 29 to find Hind Rajab, who was believed to be trapped in a vehicle in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, with six dead family members. The aid group said they had been killed by Israeli fire.

A Red Crescent statement Saturday accused Israeli forces of bombing the ambulance as it arrived “just meters away from the vehicle containing the trapped child Hind,” and killing the two rescuers inside. It said this happened “despite prior coordination” between the Red Crescent and the Israeli military.

The Red Crescent shared an image of the charred and nearly unrecognizable ambulance on social media.

Neither the Red Crescent nor Hind’s family members who were in the area around the time the ambulance arrived Jan. 29 reported any fighting between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians there, although this could not be independently verified.

The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the Red Crescent’s allegations. The military said last week that it was not aware of the incident.

A spokesperson for the Red Crescent said that the girl’s family had discovered the bodies of their relatives and the ambulance crew. It was not immediately clear how Hind died.

The Red Cross had issued a series of desperate posts since the rescuers went missing, trying to draw attention to the harrowing situation.

The search was hampered by the ongoing presence of Israeli forces in the area, making it too dangerous to send more rescuers to the scene, according to the Red Crescent.

Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza has left more than 27,000 people in Gaza dead in the past four months, according to health authorities in the territory. More than 12,000 of the dead are children, according to Gaza authorities.

UNICEF said Friday that more than 600,000 children and their families have been displaced to the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Israel’s war in Gaza began after Hamas staged a cross-border attack on Israel, which Israeli authorities said killed about 1,200 people.

The two ambulance team members, Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, were sent after a Red Crescent dispatcher spent three hours on the phone trying to console Hind as she was trapped in the car.

The Red Crescent said it had coordinated the movements of the ambulance with the Israeli military. Similar coordination is done by other aid organizations operating in Gaza, including U.N. agencies.

Some aid groups have reported convoys coming under fire.

The two rescuers confirmed arriving at the scene of the vehicle in Gaza City, in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, about 6 p.m. Jan 29. Then the Red Crescent lost contact with them and had not heard from them since.

The Israeli military’s tanks and forces remained in the vicinity, preventing the Red Crescent from sending other rescuers to the scene, the aid group said.

After the tanks withdrew, Hind’s family went to the area and saw that she was dead in the vehicle and the Red Crescent ambulance had been hit, with the two rescuers dead inside, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Red Crescent. She added that the family notified the Red Crescent and sent it photos.

Tor Wennesland, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a post on social media that when an ambulance appears to have been attacked on its way to help the child, it raises serious questions that need to be answered.

“She was found 12 days after her crushing appeal for help, and I cannot imagine the horrors she experienced,” Wennesland said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that it was “heartbroken” by the reports that Hind and the Red Crescent rescuers were killed, and strongly condemned attacks on health care workers.

“Civilians must be protected – no child should ever be terrified for their life, surrounded by the bodies of their family members,” the Red Cross said. “That these were potentially Hind’s last moments is unbearable.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.