Missing 6-Year-Old and Rescue Team Found Dead in Gaza, Aid Group Says

A 6-year-old Palestinian girl and the two rescuers who went looking for her nearly two weeks ago were found dead on Saturday, the Palestine Red Crescent said, ending a desperate effort to discover their fates.

Two rescuers with the Red Crescent were dispatched in an ambulance on the evening of Jan. 29 to find Hind Rajab, who was believed to be trapped in a vehicle in Gaza City with six dead family members. The aid group said they had been killed by Israeli fire.

A Red Crescent statement on Saturday accused Israeli forces of bombing the ambulance as it arrived “just meters away from the vehicle containing the trapped child Hind,” and killing the two rescuers inside. It said this happened “despite prior coordination” between the Red Crescent and the Israeli military.

The Red Crescent shared an image of the charred and nearly unrecognizable ambulance on social media.

Neither the Red Crescent nor Hind’s family members who were in the area around the time the ambulance arrived on Jan. 29 reported any fighting between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians there, though this could not be independently verified.

The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the Red Crescent’s allegations. The military said last week that it was not aware of the incident.

A spokeswoman for the Red Crescent said that the girl’s family had discovered the bodies of their relatives and the ambulance crew. It was not immediately clear how Hind died.