The Voice of Hind Rajab (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)

by Jack Martin | Jan 15, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 89 mins

UK Distributor: Altitude Films

UK Release Date: 16 January 2026

WHO’S IN THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB?

Amer Hlehel, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees, Saja Kilani

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Kaouther Ben Hania (director, writer, editor), Nadim Cheikhrouha, Odessa Rae and James Wilson (producers), Amine Bouhafa (composer), Juan Sarmiento G. (cinematographer), Qutaiba Barhamji and Maxime Mathis (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In January 2024, a group of Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call from Gaza…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB?

There is simply no justification for the horrors in the Middle East over the past few years. Israel may have felt emboldened by the Hamas attack that took place in October 2023, but their response by applying wave after wave of attacks on the people of Palestine and the Gaza strip, many of whom had no connection to Hamas, has been nothing short of butchery. The virtual wiping out of Gaza’s infrastructure and its civilians via the blocking of much-needed aid has been rightfully called genocidal, and the worst part is that fellow countries who have continued to fund Israel’s bombardment are complicit, remorselessly supplying the brutality of Israeli forces without a face to remind them of what or whom they are attacking.

Now, they have a face: a six-year-old Palestinian girl named Hind Rajab Hamada who, whilst fleeing Gaza with family, was left trapped after Israeli tanks fired upon their car, and eventually met the same fate as her relatives. The last people to have spoken with her were volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society that worked tirelessly to rescue her from her inevitable fate, a mission that sadly proved fruitless.

As filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania shows in her harrowing yet necessary docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab, she was just one of countless people who unnecessarily suffered at the hands of oppressive military force, and could have been saved if it weren’t for the incessant red tape surrounding the providing of aid in that area. But while Hind Rajab is no longer with us, her name lives on as the representation of what has been lost, thanks to Hania’s devastating recollection of how an ordinary young girl became a symbol overnight.

Taking place on that fateful day in late January 2024, we spend the entire film at a PRCS call centre where volunteer Omar (Motaz Malhees) receives a call from a concerned relative in Germany, which alerts Omar and fellow aid worker Rana (Saja Kilani) to the situation as Hind Rajab, whom they manage to get in contact with, is desperately pleading for help whilst she hides in the family car – surrounded by the corpses of her family, no less – as Israeli tanks swarm around her. However, getting to her location is far from straightforward, as the team and their supervisor Mahdi (Amer Hlehel) have to wait for the green light from the Red Cross, which itself has to be okayed by the Israeli army and numerous other sources before an ambulance can even be deployed, leaving the volunteers with little other choice than to stay on the line with Hind Rajab and reassure her that help is on the way.

The kicker is that Hind Rajab herself, only ever heard through voice recordings, is not played by an actor. We are literally hearing the voice of Hind Rajab, her words dominating much of the movie whilst the actors portraying the volunteers recreate their emotionally charged conversations with her while they wait far too long for help to arrive. Hania blends dramatised scenes of the PRCS staff reacting to the increasingly helpless situation with documented snippets from the actual phone calls made between them and the young girl, and simply hearing this child with all her heart and soul cry out into what might as well be thin air is beyond gut-wrenching, because even if you know going into this movie how it all ends, you’re still left in utter shock at the failure of these people to do what they’re supposed to do and provide help, no matter the environment.

That frustration of being unable to do little more than sit around with phone headsets is severely felt as we watch the likes of Omar and Rana passionately react to young Hind Rajab’s predicament, while also pressing their own superiors to speed up the bureaucratic process so that she’s finally brought to safety. You feel the utter weight of their emotions squeezing on you like an accordion, not just because the performances by the limited cast members are exceptional but also because Hania, who has fluctuated between narrative and non-fiction filmmaking throughout her established career, does incredibly well to absorb the audience deeply within the heated conversations as time passes all too slowly for what should be an urgent matter. The line between drama and reality is constantly blurred, especially as it reaches a point where you’re either watching or listening to the actual documented recordings whilst the on-screen actors recreate it movement by movement, infliction by infliction.

But in addition to telling this heartbreaking story, it is equally important that The Voice of Hind Rajab does not lionise the PRCS nor its representatives. These are people who happened to be working at this call centre like it’s any other day, and although you have responders like Omar and Rana doing whatever they can to keep the young girl on the line, the complicated process that Mahdi and on-site grief counsellor Nisreen (Clara Khoury) abide by to almost perverse precision ends up dealing the fatal blow instead of actually doing any good. Were this a more traditional movie, they would have let their gut instincts allow them to defy official orders and authorise an ambulance anyway, thus saving the girl and the day as a whole. But The Voice of Hind Rajab is not a traditional movie, for it merely shows the events how they unfolded, meaning that the inevitable outcome is not going to end well, emotionally or otherwise, for anyone involved.

In capturing such devastating reality within the confides of truthful filmmaking, Hania has turned a tragedy into an urgent call to attention that there are so many more Hind Rajabs being wiped from existence every day. And this film, with its astonishing attention to detail and unflinching portrayal of tragic loss, gives a voice to each and every one of them.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a devastatingly powerful docudrama that dramatises the harrowing attempt to rescue a helpless Palestinian child who, through artfully captured recreations and a refusal to lionise the people who tried to help, emerges as a symbol for the unjust violence in the modern-day Middle East.