Buried in Gaza’s rubble are the forgotten victims of this war, and with them are buried the stories of how they were killed.
A year on from the start of the war, many have questioned the IDF’s alleged targeting and negligent killing of civilians in its conflict with Hamas. Among those calling for justice is a mother whose young daughter was killed in an incident that shocked the world.
Five-year-old Hind Rajab was killed alongside six members of her family in a car, while trying to escape the fighting in Gaza City in January. Her heartbreaking cries for help were recorded in real time in telephone calls with emergency services, which were made public.
“I am calling on the whole world to stand with us… so those who committed this brutal crime are held accountable,” her mother, Wissam Hamada, told us from her temporary home in Gaza. “I need justice for my daughter.”
Sky News has investigated the circumstances surrounding Hind’s death, and those of her extended family and the two paramedics who were killed trying to rescue her. We have analysed satellite imagery, IDF press materials, and spoken to weapons and forensics experts.
On 29 January, desperate to escape fighting in Gaza City’s Tel al Hawa neighbourhood, Hind’s family decided to flee. “My uncle decided to put all the children in the car with him and his wife, and for us adults to walk a different way,” said 27-year-old Wissam.
Hind got into the car along with six other family members: Her mother’s uncle, Bashar Hamada; his wife, Ana’am; and their four children – Layan, Raghad, Sarah, and Mohammad.
Hind’s younger brother, Eiyad, didn’t want to get in the car and so at the last moment, he was allowed to stay with the adults.
The car, a small black Kia, was attacked near a petrol station just 350m from its starting point. Wissam says she saw it happen and confirms the car was attacked at exactly 8.10am, just 10 minutes after she and the family left their home.
“We saw them when they fired at the car but we didn’t believe they had targeted them, or we didn’t want to believe it,” she said.
The family returned to their apartment. When it felt safe, they went back outside and started walking, unsure of what had happened to Hind and the rest of the family. Wissam was frantically trying to call those in the car.
At midday, 15-year-old Layan answered the phone. She said everyone in the car was “sleeping” and that both her and Hind were wounded.
“We told her to take off her scarf, tie it to the wound and stop the bleeding,” said Wissam. But Layan couldn’t move because the car was so tightly packed with bodies.
Layan passed the phone to Hind. When Wissam asked her daughter if she could get out of the car, Hind replied: “I wish, Mama, I wish. They are all around me, Mama.” This was followed by screams. “They are getting closer, so much closer,” a panicked Hind told her mother. Then the line went dead.
The family then contacted the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) which tried to phone the girls in the car. After a few attempts, Layan answered but there was barely time for dispatcher, Omar al Qam, to introduce himself.
“They are shooting at us,” Layan said. “The tanks are next to us.”
Gunshots were heard while Omar waited on the line. “There was no response from the child I was talking to. I didn’t even get to know her name,” he said.
The conversation ends in a horrifying scream amid the sound of heavy firing. With the phone line cut-off, the PRCS rang back. This time Hind answered. She was alone in the car, everyone else was dead.
Over three hours, through multiple calls, another PRCS dispatcher, Rana Faqhi, tried to keep Hind on the line as she comforted her.
“Please stay with me until someone comes, please don’t hang up,” Hind asked Rana.
“I will stay with you. I won’t hang up. I will stay with you,” Rana told her.
Wissam was also talking to her daughter on the phone. “I told her, lower your voice otherwise they will shoot you like they shot Layan.”
The Red Crescent then set up a group call and Wissam maintained contact with her daughter, who kept asking for someone to come and get her. As night fell, Hind, who was scared of the dark, grew increasingly anxious.
“You will come and take me?” she pleaded. “I’m so scared, please come.”
While this was happening, Rana’s colleagues say they were frantically trying to coordinate a rescue, seeking permission from the Israeli authorities to dispatch an ambulance.
The PRCS says it is standard procedure for it, and other emergency services, to coordinate with the Israeli military, because their emergency services cannot, and do not, enter restricted military areas without specific permission.
After hours of waiting, the PRCS says the permission finally came through, and it got the green light to send an ambulance along a designated route.
An ambulance left from the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City at 5.40pm. The two paramedics onboard, Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al Madhoun, stayed in contact with PRCS dispatchers as they made their way.
Chilling audio of their radio communications has been shared with Sky News. In the recording you can hear the crew talking to dispatchers. Hind’s mother, Wissam Hamada, is on another phone line with the PRCS which is updating her.
“They’re right behind her, they’re about half a kilometre away, 400m,” they assured her.
“Did you coordinate access, is it safe?” Wissam asked.
“Yes, we coordinated access, we’ve been sorting that for the last three hours, don’t worry.”
One of the paramedics then asked: “Where is the girl?”
“The girl is in the wrecked car,” the dispatcher responded.
By 6pm the ambulance crew were close to the family car, telling dispatchers they had their emergency lights on but no siren.
“Oh, there she is,” a paramedic said, just before communication ended abruptly with the sound of heavy gunfire. Both paramedics were killed.
PRCS spokesperson Nebal Farsakh says in her mind this was not an accident, citing previously documented incidents of ambulance crews and medics being targeted by the IDF.
“In any area that has a military operation, and is considered as military zones by Israeli forces, we are denied access to it,” Nebal explained. “We do not dispatch our ambulances to areas where it is considered a military area… If we get calls from these areas we try to coordinate our safe access.”
The IDF confirmed a “preliminary inspection” into this incident had been carried out.
In a statement to Sky News, it said: “It appears that IDF forces were not present near the vehicle or within the firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found.”
With regards to the ambulance, the IDF said: “Given the lack of forces in the area, there was no need for an individual coordination of the ambulance’s route or an accompanying vehicle in order to pick up the girl. Ambulances travel without individual coordination around the Gaza Strip every day, and do not require it unless there are forces in the area.”
On 10 February, once the area was safer to access, both the ambulance and the car that Hind and the Hamada family were travelling in, were located. One of Hind’s uncles, Sameer Hamada, was first to arrive at the scene.
“I found their car. I found my brother Bashar. His wife was next to him and we found Layan, Raghad, Sarah, Mohammad and Hind at the back. They were all martyred. [Their bodies had] decomposed because of the length of the time,” Sameer said.
He also found the burnt-out ambulance, in which there were “just bones”. Sameer removed the bodies from the family’s car and buried them at a cemetery near their home in the north.
A Sky News camera team recorded footage of both the car and the ambulance, which was used to analyse the damage to the vehicles. Amael Kotlarski, weapons team manager at JANES, which provides security and defence analysis, said the damage shows the ambulance was hit with a “large calibre weapon”, with the projectile’s exit hole visible at the back of the vehicle.
The black Kia Picanto was covered in bullet holes, with dozens of entry holes on the right-hand side of the car. Sky News has examined satellite imagery taken on 29 January, the day of the attack.
It shows at least 15 military vehicles in the Tel al Hawa neighbourhood – where the family’s car was found. The closest military vehicle is just 300m away. One satellite image was taken at 4.31pm local time – just over an hour before the PRCS said it received approval to send an ambulance.
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Satellite imagery taken in the days following the attack show how heavy the military presence remained, with at least 13 military vehicles seen on 7 February. A day later, on 8 February, at least nine military vehicles were seen in the area near the Islamic University in Gaza City.
The IDF says it was not in the area on the day of the incident, but its presence in the area was made public by itself, perhaps mistakenly. Twelve days after the attack, on the same day the car and ambulance was found, the IDF published a press release about its activities in Gaza. It said “over the last two weeks” it had “conducted raids on terror targets” with forces operating in Shati and Tel al Hawa neighbourhoods in Gaza.
Tel al Hawa is the same neighbourhood Hind Rajab, the Hamada family, and the paramedics were killed in. The press release was later deleted from the IDF website.
Further down in the press release, the IDF embedded videos showing its movements in the area. “We are in UNRWA’s central headquarters in Gaza,” a soldier said in one video.
The videos show IDF units at a United Nations site which it says was used by Hamas.
Sky News geolocated the IDF footage released on 10 February, which showed three forces – 401st Brigade, Shayetet 13 and 52nd Battalion operating less than 650m from the car that Hind was found in.
While it is not clear exactly what date the footage in the release was filmed, the IDF’s presence in the area is undeniable.
The Gaza war is in many ways unique as it’s happening in a closed space with no escape, and no independent investigation on the ground into what is happening.
What has happened and what secrets lie beneath the rubble may never be known.
Reporting by Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, Dominique van Heerden, senior foreign producer and Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT producer
“We sat in the yard from 8am to 5pm under the sun with no water or food.”
Sixteen-year-old Mohammed* was separated from his mother by Israeli forces as his family tried to flee northern Gaza.
Mohammed’s mother was taken to a “sandy pit” with other women and children and sat in the heat for hours before the group were released and told to move south. She took this video as she waited.
Mohammed and his mother are among tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to flee northern Gaza in the past few weeks, as Israel’s military assault against Hamas has intensified.
Using geolocated videos, an interview with a teenage boy held in a school by Israeli forces and evacuation orders issued by the military, Sky News has investigated the conditions that some civilians have faced while leaving.
Our analysis of the evacuation orders reveals that over the course of five days in mid-October, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of 90% of the North Gaza governorate – an area half the size of Manchester. The UN says within two weeks in October alone, 60,000 people were displaced from North Gaza.
It comes as experts told Sky News Israel has a responsibility as the occupying power to look after civilians, “especially those civilians it may move for military reasons”.
In response to our report, the IDF said it makes “every effort to prevent harm to uninvolved civilians” and takes “additional measures” alongside evacuation maps to move civilians to safer areas.
It said: “Extensive efforts are being made to identify each individual examined and to detain only those who are terror operatives or suspected of being involved in terrorist activities”. It added that those who are not involved are released “as soon as possible” and IDF protocols are to “treat detainees with dignity”.
Videos show mass evacuations
Northern Gaza has become the focus of Israel’s military efforts in the strip. It says it aims to destroy Hamas who they say are regrouping in the north.
Sky News geolocated 17 videos and images taken by civilians, soldiers and shared by the IDF showing mass evacuations and detentions in northern Gaza posted online in the past three weeks.
The footage below shows hundreds of civilians fleeing on foot. Taken from an Israeli armoured vehicle, women and children are seeing carrying their belongings. It offers a glimpse into the scale of the evacuations taking place in the north.
We mapped the locations of these videos to an area just north of the Indonesian Hospital. The IDF has also published multiple videos online in the past two weeks showing its efforts to help civilians leave.
But other footage, geolocated to a similar area, captures a different part of the IDFs operation.
One video, posted online on 23 October, shows at least 23 Palestinian men barefoot, blindfolded, dressed in white suits and led away by Israeli soldiers.
The IDF had said in the days previously, that its forces had been operating against “terrorists” in the area. But the exact circumstances of this video are unclear.
Defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke says that while it’s not “unreasonable” to separate people for interrogation in a counter-terrorist operation, there are conditions.
He said: “They have to be interrogated properly. They can’t be held indefinitely. They have to have some form of representation and evidence has to be produced. Simply taking all the men away and locking them up is strictly against the laws of war and the Geneva Convention.”
In response, the IDF said recently its forces have been operating in Jabalia in northern Gaza against “terrorist infrastructure” and Hamas militants and has detained and questioned “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities”.
It added that “relevant suspects are transferred for continued detention and investigation in Israel” and those who are not involved are released, adding that individuals detained are treated “in accordance with international law”.
Teenager separated from family
Mohammed is among Palestinians who have been separated from their family during evacuation. With his parents, the family started their journey out of northern Gaza on 22 October after an Israeli evacuation order for Beit Lahia was issued that morning.
Mohammed said they walked from a house they were staying at near the Kamal Adwan Hospital and headed towards the Indonesian Hospital. His mother said casualties were “flooding” in and out of the hospital and described it as “the most terrifying scene ever”.
Mohammed said: “The soldiers were laughing at us and hurling insults as we walked among them… When we arrived at the Indonesian hospital, the solders separated the men from the women and put them in a school and made the women continue walking along Salah al Din Road.
“I’m 16 years old, I’m still young. I continued walking with my mother, but the soldier ordered me in Arabic to go to the school.
“My mother told me, ‘don’t answer him and keep walking with me. I can’t leave you alone’. My father went, but I was still walking with my mother. But then the soldier raised his weapon at me and said to me, ‘I told you to go the school’.”
Mohammed and his father were taken to the al Kuwait School next to the hospital where they were ordered to sit outside for nine hours. His mother, separated from her son, was told to continue walking towards the Salah al Din Road.
He said: “The army was summoning 10 people then 10 more for examination for security… they put them in white uniforms blindfolded and walked barefoot the soldiers beat them if they fell.”
With a group of women and children, Mohammed’s mother was taken to a sandy area just off the Salah al Din Road where they sat in the sun for hours before eventually being released and walking to Gaza City. Three of the videos we geolocated were taken by Mohammed’s mother, 800m south of the Indonesian Hospital.
She told Sky News: “I filmed everything. I don’t know why I did it, I just wanted to show my son and husband what we were experiencing when I was reunited with them.”
Mohammed and his father were released separately that evening. He says he walked for five hours with no clothes to get to Gaza City, where he found his parents. They are unsure when or if they will be able to return safely to the north.
In response, the IDF said it addresses and examines events that deviated from IDF values through “command and disciplinary measures”. It said requested details necessary to examine the claim “were not provided” and therefore are unable to further review them.
Journey to Mawasi over 16km
The Israeli military has urged civilians to go to al Mawasi – a strip of land on the coast in southern Gaza which it deems a “humanitarian zone”. The United Nations humanitarian agency has said Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is increasingly concentrated in al Mawasi.
The military has frequently posted evacuation maps online – telling civilians which zones to leave and where they should go.
These maps are not the only form of evacuation notices issued by the IDF, who also use other methods like leaflets. But the Israeli military says they are created to minimise civilian casualties and Gazans are often told to refer to them.
Since the start of October, our analysis found the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson has posted three evacuation maps for northern Gaza – on 7, 8 and 12 October.
Two of the maps, posted on 7 and 8 October, show the same area, covering the majority of North Gaza governorate. The third map, posted on 12 October, covers the neighbourhood of Jabalia. Sky News compared these maps with UN maps of Gaza’s official administrative boundaries.
It is possible that the IDF has issued more evacuation orders in the period we analysed using maps and other methods which were not posted online. Our analysis is based on the information they have posted on their social media accounts.
Our analysis found that the areas evacuated between 7 and 12 October encompass 90% of the North Gaza governorate. The UN told Sky News that an estimated 90,000 people remain in the region.
Of the three maps we found, only one of them details the time period in which civilians were safe to travel on the given route. The other two do not provide a length of the evacuation order or an expiry date.
In response, the IDF said since the start of the war over two million evacuation notifications have been distributed, more than 12 million flyers have been dropped, over 100,000 phone calls made and over 800,000 voice messages sent for evacuations.
Measuring the distance between our geolocated videos of the evacuations and the Mawasi zone, we found civilians would have to walk at least 16km to get there.
We also found that the three hospitals that have recently been operational in northern Gaza – Kamal Adwan Hospital, Indonesian Hospital and al Awda Hospital, were included on two of the three evacuation maps we found.
The IDF expanded the area of the al Mawasi zone in October but has been criticised for its lack of support for civilians who have moved there.
Professor Clarke said: “If the Israelis are moving these people out, that can be permissible if they can provide evidence that they are providing for these people at the other end of their journey.
“Now, so far in the evacuations that we’ve seen in the last 12 months in Gaza, that has not been the case. The best the Israelis have managed is to allow the UN and relief organisations to do something. But the fact is it’s their responsibility, not the UN responsibility. It’s their responsibility as the occupying power to look after civilians, particularly civilians it may move for military reasons.”
The IDF said as part of its efforts in the humanitarian zone of al Mawasi, “proactive calls” were made for civilians to evacuate “to an area into which humanitarian aid was transported, including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment, which included the provision of 40,000 tents purchased by the State of Israel”.
It added that due to recent operations in the Jabalia area, “prior notifications indicated the need for evacuation… which also includes several hospitals”. It said officials from the Palestinian healthcare system and international community requested IDF assistance in safely evacuating the hospitals in the area.
The military said “no specific time frame was set for the evacuation of the hospitals, and evacuations have been ongoing”.
There have also been significant changes to infrastructure in northern Gaza. Satellite imagery taken 10 days apart shows the disappearance of two large displacement camps and tents set up in schools.
Over 50 tents in a civilian displacement camp less than 500m north of the Indonesian Hospital is visible in imagery taken on 14 October but is not visible in an image taken on 24 October.
Another camp with over 100 tents less than 2km south is also not visible in the latest imagery of the area.
It’s unclear whether the camp was cleared by the military or civilians. The IDF facilitated evacuations in the area near the Indonesian Hospital within the 10-day period when the images were taken.
It’s not yet clear how long the Israeli offensive in the north will continue for. Aid organisations and members of the international community like the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), have raised concerns about the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, citing limited humanitarian aid getting through.
*Mohammed’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
Additional reporting by Celine Alkhaldi, Middle East producer, Michelle Inez Simon, visual investigations producer, Sam Doak, OSINT producer and Adam Parker, OSINT editor.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Donald Trump says he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine should he return to the White House – but any rushed deal will likely leave Kyiv much weaker and European security in even greater peril.
Another major flashpoint a Trump presidency would immediately seek to influence is the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel.
Mr Trump came close to direct war with Tehran during his first term in office and prior restraint could well give way to direct confrontation this time around.
Then there is the overwhelming longer-term challenge posed by China, with North Korea another growing headache especially after Mr Trump tried but failed to woo the leader of the hermit state during his first stint as commander-in-chief.
With the US election on a knife edge, hostile and friendly capitals around the world have been gaming what a second Trump White House might mean for their respective national interests and for the most pressing global security threats.
Mr Trump’s track record of unpredictability is a challenge for traditional foes – but also for Washington’s closest allies, in particular fellow members of the NATO alliance.
The Republican nominee has made no secret of his frustration at how the US has for decades bankrolled the security blanket that protects Europe.
During his first term as president, Mr Trump threatened to withdraw the US from the alliance – a move that would almost certainly sound its death knell. His rhetoric did help to spur allies to dig deeper into their pockets and spend more on their militaries, though.
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But the damage of years of underinvestment is deep and the pace of recovery is too slow for European NATO allies and Canada to credibly stand on their own as a potent military force any time soon.
In terms of immediacy when it comes to global crises, the impact of a Trump victory on 5 November would be felt most acutely by Ukraine and also by Iran.
The presidential candidate has repeatedly claimed that he would quickly end the Ukraine war, though without explaining how or what peace would look like.
In an indication of where his priorities lie, however, he has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being the “greatest salesman on earth” for securing tens of billions of dollars in weapons and other assistance that Washington has given to Kyiv.
Yet – coupled with Ukraine’s willingness to fight – that military aid is the biggest reason why Ukraine has managed to withstand almost 1,000 days of Vladimir Putin’swar.
Stop the flow of American weapons, and Ukrainian troops – despite their own ingenuity and the support of other allies – will simply lack the firepower to keep resisting the onslaught.
By contrast, US vice president Kamala Harris, who is vying for the top job, has made clear that she views continued support to Ukraine as being as vital to US and Western interests as it is to Kyiv’s – a far more familiar stance that echoes the view of her NATO partners.
While US support for Ukraine would undoubtedly change under a Trump administration, that is not the same as facilitating a complete surrender.
The former president – who portrays himself as the ultimate dealmaker and has adopted a new election slogan – “Trump will fix it” – will not want to be held responsible for the total absorption of Ukraine into Mr Putin’s orbit.
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How does the US election work?
Putin and Iran
His relationship with the Russian president is a particularly interesting dynamic.
But with the right advice, might a future President Trump be able to use his connection with Mr Putin to the West’s advantage?
At the very least, it adds a new level of unpredictability – which is perhaps the most important element when it comes to assessing the potential impact on the world of a second Trump term.
On Iran, in stark contrast to his approach to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a future President Trump may well back much greater US military support for Israel’s conflict against Tehran and its proxies – perhaps even direct involvement by US forces in strikes on Iran.
Mr Trump has an even tougher stance towards Tehran and its nuclear ambitions than Joe Biden’s administration.
His decision to rip up a major nuclear deal with Iran was one of his most significant foreign policy acts during his four years as president.
It is also personal, with Iran accused of hacking the Trump campaign in recent months – an attack that would surely only heighten tensions with Iran during any second Trump term.
On election night, Sky News will have access to the most comprehensive exit poll and vote-counting results from every state, county and demographic across America through its US-partner network NBC.
You can find out more about Sky News’ coverage here.
A red alert warning of “extreme danger” because of torrential rain has been issued for Barcelona, as elsewhere in Spain search teams continue to scour flooded areas for bodies.
At least 217 people have died after heavy rain in eastern Spain caused flash floods that swept away almost everything in their path.
People were trapped in cars, homes and businesses as the waters surged through the disaster zone last week.
Six days later, the search and rescue operation continues for the unknown number of missing people, with thousands of soldiers brought in to help.
And as communities continue to reel from the catastrophic floods – and mourn their losses – more rain is forecast for parts of the country.
Today, the local government in Catalonia has warned of “continuous and torrential” rain in two regions, saying people should avoid travel and stay away from streams and ravines.
A red alert “extreme danger” warning has been issued for Barcelona.
“Do not travel unless strictly necessary,” the alert told people nearby.
Footage on social media shows heavy rainfall overwhelming stairwells and leaving streets strewn with water.
Dozens of flights have been cancelled at El Prat airport after the terminal building was flooded.
Elsewhere in eastern Spain, much attention has been paid to an underground car park in Aldaia, where emergency services have been trying to drain the floodwater to gain access.
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Search for bodies in flooded car park
There has been anger at the response from authorities and a group of survivors hurled mud and insults at Spain’s King Felipe when the monarch visited one of the worst-affected towns.
By the time authorities sent alerts to mobile phones warning of the seriousness of the flooding and asking people to stay at home, many were already on the road or in places like underground garages that became death traps.
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Protesters throw mud at King of Spain
Valencia’s MotoGP race, which had been scheduled for later this month, has been cancelled after floods wrought destruction on the track.
Thousands of volunteers have been helping to clear away thick layers of mud from streets and homes.