With tears and chants of “Free, Free Palestine” and the waving of Palestinian flags, the true-life drama, The Voice of Hind Rajab, recounting the final plea of a five-year-old Gaza girl who was brutally killed by the Israeli forces in Gaza City last year, received a more than 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere at the iconic Venice Film Festival.

At Wednesday’s premiere, the emotional docu-drama focuses on recordings from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which tried for hours to reassure five-year-old Rajab as she lay trapped in a car where her aunt, uncle and three cousins were killed by Israeli fire.

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In original recordings taken from the attack on January 29, 2024, Rajab is heard sobbing and telling the Red Crescent Society, “Please come to me, please come. I’m scared”, while bullets were fired in the background.

After a three-hour wait, rescuers were allowed, by the Israeli military, to dispatch an ambulance to the car where Rajab spoke from. However, contact with the girl was cut off just after the ambulance arrived.

Days later, Rajab’s body was found along with her relatives. The remains of the two killed ambulance workers who tried to rescue her were also recovered from their vehicle, which had been destroyed.

Director of the docu-drama, Franco-Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania, told reporters in advance of the screening that the narrative from the media of those dying in Gaza was that of “collateral damage”.

“And I think this is so dehumanising, and that’s why cinema, art and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and face,” Ben Hania said.

Rajab’s mother, Wissam Hamada, told the AFP news agency that she hoped the film would help end the war.

“The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything,” Hamada told AFP by phone from Gaza City, where she lives with her five-year-old son.

In June 2024, Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines investigated the attack, providing a detailed reconstruction of the incident, in collaboration with nonprofit investigative groups Forensic Architecture and Earshot and revealed that an Israeli tank was just 13 to 23 metres (42 to 75 feet) away when it opened fire on Rajab’s car.

Moreover, a United Nations report in July 2024 found, citing forensic analysis, that Rajab’s car was shot at from “very close range using a type of weapon that can only be attributed to the Israeli forces”.

While the Israeli military has previously said its troops were not in firing range of the car Rajab was in, earlier this week, the military was asked again about the attack and said that the incident was still under review, declining to comment further.