On February 5th the BBC News website published a report by Lucy Williamson titled ‘Israel-Gaza war: Unknown fate of six-year-old Hind Rajab trapped under fire’.
Readers are told that:
“Hind had set off from her home in Gaza City earlier that day with her uncle, aunt and five cousins.
It was Monday 29 January. That morning, the Israeli army had told people to evacuate areas in the west of the city and move south along the coast road.
Hind’s mother, Wissam, remembers there was intense shelling in their area. “We were terrified, and we wanted to escape,” she said. “We were fleeing from place to place, to avoid the air strikes.”
The family decided to head for the Ahli Hospital to the east of the city, hoping it would be a safer place to shelter.”
Williamson does not explain why the family had not previously evacuated themselves from Gaza City despite months of warnings to do so or why they did not follow the evacuation route recommended by the IDF on the morning of January 29th before continuing:
“Wissam and her older child began making their own way there on foot; Hind was given a place in her uncle’s car, a black Kia Piccanto.
“It was very cold and rainy,” Wissam explained. “I told Hind to go in the car because I didn’t want her to suffer in the rain.”
As soon as the car left, she said, they heard loud shooting coming from the same direction.
As Hind’s uncle drove towards the city’s famous al-Azhar University, the car is thought to have unexpectedly come face to face with Israeli tanks. They pulled into the nearby Fares petrol station for safety, and appear to have come under fire.
Inside the vehicle, the family called relatives for help. One of them contacted the emergency headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent, 50 miles (80km) away in the occupied West Bank.”
Williamson’s report continues with accounts from the PRCS call centre operator in Ramallah and the child’s mother. Notably, the PRCS – which is obviously one of the main sources of this story – had already decided on the evening of January 29th that the vehicle has been “fired upon by the occupation forces” despite the absence of any forensic evidence to prove that claim.
On February 10th, Williamson published a follow-up report titled “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help” in which readers are told that: [emphasis added]
“Audio recordings of calls between Hind and emergency call operators suggest that the six-year-old was the only one left alive in the car, hiding from Israeli forces among the bodies of her relatives. […]
Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) managed on Saturday to reach the area, which had previously been closed off as an active combat zone.
They found the black Kia car Hind had been travelling in – its windscreen and dashboard smashed to pieces, bullet holes scattered across the side. […]
A few metres away were the remains of another vehicle – completely burnt out, its engine spilling onto the ground. This, the Red Crescent says, is the ambulance sent to fetch Hind.
Its crew – Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun – were killed when the ambulance was bombed by Israeli forces, the organisation says.”
Ignoring the fact that the PRCS has not presented any evidence to prove that the ambulance was “bombed by Israeli forces”, Williamson goes on to amplify PRCS claims (and partial language in the form of “the occupation”) which she has obviously not independently verified.
“In a statement, the PRCS accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance, as soon as it arrived at the scene on 29 January.
“The [Israeli] occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite obtaining prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the scene to rescue the child Hind,” it said.
The PRCS told the BBC that it had taken several hours to coordinate access with the Israeli army, in order to send paramedics to Hind.
“We got the coordination, we got the green light,” PRCS spokeswoman, Nibal Farsakh, told me earlier this week. “On arrival, [the crew] confirmed that they could see the car where Hind was trapped, and they could see her. The last thing we heard is continuous gunfire.””
On February 25th the Times of Israel reported as follows:
“Following reports that a six-year-old Palestinian girl was killed by Israeli fire in Gaza City in late January, along with five of her family members and two medics who had gone to save them, the IDF said Saturday its initial investigation suggested no troops were in the area at the time of the incident. […]
In response to a query on the matter, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit told The Times of Israel that “from a preliminary investigation that was conducted, it appears that IDF troops were not present near the vehicle or within firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found.
“Also, given the lack of forces in the area, there was no need for individual coordination of the movement of the ambulance or another vehicle to pick up the girl,” the IDF said.
“Every day, dozens of ambulances move without individual coordination throughout the Strip, and as long as there are no forces in the area, the movement does not require coordination,” it added.
The IDF said the case had been handed over to the General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war.”
Obviously, the final results of that investigation are still pending. However to date, Williamson has not shown any interest in informing BBC audiences of that IDF statement.
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According to Aljazeera English TV the day of the child disappeared, her mother Wissam appeared on the broadcast and was identified as a hospital psychologist and she acted the part.