A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Voice of Hind Rajab”. (2026, 4.5*, 15).
Original title: Original title: Sawt Hind Rajab.
If last year’s documentary “No Other Land” was not a great day for the Israeli PR department, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is a total nightmare for them. I’m recovering here, having just sat, silently, through the whole of the end titles, trying to process the degree of anger I have at the moment about the Israeli army’s actions in Gaza.
This film well-deserves its place in the list of International Films nominated for an Oscar. But man-oh-man, is it a tough watch. I feel more traumatised by this as I did by Sirât.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
The Red Crescent in Palestine receives a distress call from a car trapped in a militarised zone in Northern Gaza. Inside the car, after a second call, is a terrified 6-year old girl, Hind Rajab, alone amongst the bodies of her uncle, aunt and five cousins.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Distressing scenes, strong threat, images of real dead bodies”.)
Talent:
Starring: Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel, Clara Khoury, Nesbat Serhan.
Directed by: Kaouther Ben Hania.
Written by: Kaouther Ben Hania.
Running Time: 1h 29m.
Summary:
Positives:
- An utterly stressful and gut-wrenching 90 minutes.
- Well re-enacted and well-edited call centre scenes, blended seamlessly with actual footage.
Negatives:
- The film left me with lots of questions as to “why?” and what was the aftermath.
Full Review of The Voice of Hind Rajab:
Seething with anger.
There are few films based on real-life events that REALLY get under my skin and make me seethe with anger, but sadly this is one of them. As a viewer you are pitched into the stressful world of the Red Crescent call centre, hearing one side of many calls coming into them with people in distress. But then, on January 29th 2024, comes the call from a lady in a car trapped in the Tel Al-Hawa district of Northern Gaza.
The film utilises (in devastating fashion) the actual emergency calls from the incident but re-enacts the scenes in the call centre using a team of actors. As Omar (Motaz Malhees) speaks to the lady, you hear a tank open fire on the car and the terrible screams of the dying woman and her family. As if this wasn’t traumatic enough, the phone is then answered by 6-year old Hind Rajab, the only one left alive amongst a pile of corpses of her “sleeping” relatives.
How do you get sense out of a terrified 6-year-old?
The early stages of the call are harrowing as the clearly traumatised youngster gives her name but can’t clearly convey who is (or was) in the car with her. She keeps saying “No-one”. Eventually, Omar and his supervisor, the already exhausted Rana (Saja Kilani) after a 12-hour shift, calm the girl enough to get her to converse with them. She is referred to on the call as ‘Hanood’ (Arabic meaning “gentle inclination” “leaning” “tenderness” or “affection”): this seems to be her nickname by which she calls herself.
The insolence of office and the law’s delay.
In any other civilised country, you would think that an ambulance could be dispatched under the sign of the Red Cross or Red Crescent and would safely traverse the streets to take away the dead bodies and rescue the young girl. But not in the Israeli occupied Gaza. Instead, “coordination” has to take place by the supervisor Mahdi (Amer Hlehel) to allow an available ambulance, just 8 minutes away, to traverse the dangerous streets without fear of attack. And this is a convoluted process, involving intermediaries between the Red Crescent and the Israeli army and multiple stages before an ‘Approved Route’ is agreed and then another cycle of communication until a “Green Light” can be given.
This is all too much for the over-stressed and hot-headed Omar to stand for and he consistently berates Mahdi for his lack of action, often exhibiting his frustration in highly non-productive ways. Mahdi in turn points to the poster on the wall of the names and faces of all of the Red Crescent workers that have already lost their lives: he has vowed that if there is one more picture going up on there, then he will quit his job.
A seamless blend of real and recreated.
The film does a fantastic job of blending the actual calls and, in the latter stages of the film, some actual recorded phone footage, into the recreations. Hearing the terrified voice of Hind Rajab on the phone is one of the worst things I think I will hear in the cinema in 2026: no so-called horror film can come close to this real-life terror.
All of the ensemble of actors do a really great job becoming believable stand-ins for the actual people. We see them buckling under the stress – even the call centre counsellor Nisreen (Clara Khoury). At one point Omar and Mahdi have a bust-up and Mahdi locks himself in the toilet. In a conciliatory gesture, Omar starts playing a video game with Mahdi over the web: it’s just kind of ironic that the game is a war shoot-em-up like “Call of Duty”.
The film is well-shot by cinematographer Juan Sarmiento G. and nicely cut together by the editing team of Qutaiba Barhamji, Kaouther Ben Hania and Maxime Mathis.
But why?
My one reservation about this terrifying but excellent film is that it leaves you with a whole host of unanswered questions. As these are spoilers for the end of the film, I will put a “Spoiler Section” after the credits with more commentary.
Summary Thoughts on The Voice of Hind Rajab:
One of the most emotionally devastating films I’m likely to see in 2026: for sure Sirât was hard work, but that was just a work of fiction; as the line goes in E.T. “this is reality Greg”. It’s a film that, now seen, is going to be hard to get out of my mind. But well-deserving of its Oscar nomination and I for one would not be disappointed if it won.
Where to watch?
(I’m aware that this Justwatch widget is not delivering results at the moment: I am still trying to fix it with the developers. But I rented this film in the UK on Apple TV+.)
Trailer for The Voice of Hind Rajab:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkeKrG0YONQ.
Spoiler Section:
Don’t read past this point if you’ve not seen the movie.
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NO, SERIOUSLY!
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The denouement of the film is the terrible tragedy of the ambulance following the “approved” and “green-lit” route being blown apart by a tank just yards from the stranded Hind in the car, killing the two brave paramedics. Hind also dies although it is not made clear how or when that happens. You see this devastating roller-coaster of emotions play out that would surely have permanently scarred the call centre team (and indeed, us as third-party viewers).
My one disappointment with the film is that you never learn WHY? Why, when this rescue mission was organised through all of the right channels was an obviously marked ambulance blown apart in the streets.
From the wiki page about the incident, the following is the summary of the output from the investigation.
According to an initial investigation from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Rajab and her relatives were killed by the Israeli army in a “planned execution”; using a US-made missile, the IDF also killed the Red Crescent paramedics sent to rescue the young girl. Shell fragments of an American-made M830A1 projectile were found at the site of the bombed Red Crescent ambulance that was looking for Rajab and her family. A spokesperson for the U.S. government said that it would wait for Israel to conclude its investigation of the incident.
An IDF spokesperson stated there were no IDF troops near the vehicle or within firing range and that, due to the lack of troops, ambulance coordination was unnecessary to rescue Rajab. In response to the IDF statements, Al Jazeera stated, “Israel has a history of swiftly clearing its troops of any wrongdoing in cases of abuse against Palestinians.” An Al Jazeera investigation further found that three Israeli tanks were in the vicinity of Rajab’s family vehicle at the time of the attack.
So, it seems pretty clear where the blame is currently being ascribed here. But how or why would the Israelis execute such an obvious and deliberate war crime? It still doesn’t make sense to me.
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