‘Will You Come and Get Me?’
When Omar called back, 5-year-old Hind answered, her voice small but clear. She told them everyone else was gone and desperately asked Rana, one of the dispatchers, to come get her. Rana and her colleagues kept talking to Hind while they waited for the Israeli military to approve sending an ambulance. The paramedics were only eight minutes away, but the approval process took hours – a delay that made no sense to Hind. They had to follow a route specifically approved by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Finally, after sunset, they received permission. But as the ambulance neared the car where Hind was waiting, it was hit by a tank. Twelve days later, Hind, her family, and the paramedics, Youssef Zaïno and Ahmed al-Madhoun, were found dead. Investigations by the Washington Post and other groups suggest they were killed in an attack by Israeli forces, though Israel had previously stated its troops weren’t in the area.
