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The movie draws connected existent audio from the five-year-old’s telephone with exigency services arsenic her household came nether Israeli fire.
Published On 23 Jan 2026
A haunting docudrama astir Israel’s sidesplitting of five-year-old Palestinian miss Hind Rajab during its genocidal warfare connected Gaza has been nominated for an Academy Award.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, by French-Tunisian manager Kaouther Ben Hania, was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film connected Thursday.
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The movie tells the existent communicative of Hind, who was killed by Israeli forces successful 2024 arsenic she and her household tried to evacuate Gaza City, blending recordings of existent exigency calls with melodramatic re-enactments.
It draws connected harrowing audio from Hind Rajab’s telephone to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, successful which rescuers tried to reassure her arsenic she laic trapped successful a bullet-ridden car with the bodies of her aunt, uncle and 3 cousins, who had each been killed by Israeli fire.
The miss was past besides killed, arsenic were the 2 ambulance workers who went to the country to effort to rescue her.
A signaling of the telephone telephone was wide shared connected societal media aft her death, causing renewed planetary outrage implicit Israel’s attacks connected civilians.
At slightest 71,551 Palestinians person been killed and 171,372 wounded successful Israeli attacks since the warfare began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, galore of them children.
UNICEF, the UN’s bureau for children, said earlier this period that much than 100 Palestinian children had been killed successful Gaza, adjacent since the commencement of the ceasefire that began successful October past year.
‘Make her dependable echo’
Responding to the nomination, filmmaker Ben Hania said her information for the movie had been to amplify Hind Rajab’s dependable astir the world, The Associated Press quality bureau reported.
“When I started making this movie, my main obsession oregon idea, due to the fact that the dependable of this small miss wasn’t heard erstwhile it was needed, was however to marque her dependable echo each implicit the world,” she said.
“So the information that we are nominated today, it’s a spotlight that the dependable of Hind Rajab needs.”
She said she was grateful that members of the academy who had voted for her movie had recognised “that cinema is not ever an escape”.
“It tin beryllium confrontational. It tin beryllium thing astir truth, and astir what is happening and thing that we should not look distant from.”
No grounds of speech of fire
The Israeli authorities initially claimed that nary of its forces were contiguous erstwhile the Rajab household was killed, aboriginal asserting that the 335 slug holes recovered successful the family’s car were the effect of an speech of occurrence betwixt Israeli troops and equipped Palestinian fighters.
However, a consequent probe of outer imagery and audio from that time by the London-based probe radical Forensic Architecture identified lone the beingness of respective Israeli Merkava tanks successful the vicinity of the Rajab family’s car and nary grounds of immoderate speech of fire.
The wide commandant of the tanks contiguous during the family’s sidesplitting was Colonel Beni Aharon of Israel’s 401 Armoured Brigade.
Colonel Aharon is already the subject of a transgression ailment astatine the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation, which uses societal media footage captured by Israeli soldiers during operations successful Gaza arsenic the ground for warfare crimes prosecutions.
Third-time nominated
The Oscar motion is not the archetypal manufacture designation for Ben Hania oregon her film.
The manager has doubly been nominated for Academy Awards, for her 2020 film, The Man Who Sold His Skin and her 2023 documentary, Four Daughters.
The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Grand Jury Prize Silver Lion astatine the Venice International Film Festival successful September, wherever it received a 23-minute lasting ovation astatine its premiere.
The 98th Academy Awards volition instrumentality spot connected March 15 successful Los Angeles, hosted by Conan O’Brien.
English (US) ·