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Another Hind Rajab: Trapped Gaza girl rescued after help plea

Another Hind Rajab: Trapped Gaza girl pleads for help after Israeli strike on Jabalia camp
MENA
2 min read
08 October, 2024
Zamzam Al-Ajrami was trapped under rubble since Sunday when Israel began relentlessly bombarding the Jabalia refugee camp.
After a year of Israeli bombing, Jabalia was already in ruins before the latest Israeli strikes [Getty]

A Palestinian girl trapped under the rubble after an Israeli strike hit her building in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza was rescued on Monday.

Zamzam Al-Ajrami, along with her siblings, was forced to lie beside the body of her dead mother while nursing her severely injured aunt, as Israeli forces blocked ambulances reaching her location in Jabalia since Sunday.

The girl managed to phone her teacher for help, explaining what happened and her location. This was then posted on social media sites in an attempt to get help for her.

"A girl (Zamzam) is trapped with her mother and aunt in Jabalia. Her mother was martyred next to her, and her aunt is bleeding. She called her teacher, Nour Abu Nada, asking for help," one activist wrote on X.

In an excerpt of Zamzam's call for help, the girl says: "My mother was [killed] and I don’t know what to do."

In other excerpts, played on Arabic media outlets, Zamzam can be heard describing the moment she realised her mother was dead and how she was able to stop her injured aunt's bleeding.

Activists on X likened Zamzam's situation to the now infamous case of five-year-old Hind Rajab, who also managed to phone for help before being killed by Israeli forces as her family attempted to flee Gaza City.

The killing of “Little Hind”, as she became known in the media, sparked global outrage, as Israeli forces deliberately targeted the car carrying her and six members of her family several times, killing everyone inside.

Despite a moment when Zamzam was no longer able to be reached by phone, with people fearing the worst, she and her siblings were eventually saved and taken to the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.

The fate of her aunt is not known.

Israel began a fresh round of heavy airstrikes on Jabalia on Sunday, with the camp being pounded relentlessly.

At least 17 people have been killed so far, with Israel completely encircling the camp and Palestinian rescuers still being blocked by Israeli forces from reaching certain parts of areas hit by airstrikes.

On Monday and Tuesday, Israeli tanks penetrated deeper into the camp, accompanied by an onslaught of airstrikes, signalling another ground offensive in the area.

Israel also dropped thousands of leaflets ordering the evacuation of the area, indicating more strikes and a widening ground operation.

Since the war on Gaza began just over one year ago, Israel has killed at least 16,500 children.