Gaza war docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab nominated for Academy Award

A haunting docudrama about Israel’s killing of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab during its genocidal war on Gaza has been nominated for an Academy Award.

The Voice of Hind Rajab, by French-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film on Thursday.

The film tells the true story of Hind, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024 as she and her family tried to evacuate Gaza City, blending recordings of real emergency calls with dramatic re-enactments.

It draws on harrowing audio from Hind Rajab’s call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, in which rescuers tried to reassure her as she lay trapped in a bullet-ridden car with the bodies of her aunt, uncle and three cousins, who had all been killed by Israeli fire.

The girl was then also killed, as were the two ambulance workers who went to the scene to try to rescue her.

A recording of the phone call was widely shared on social media after her death, causing renewed international outrage over Israel’s attacks on civilians.

At least 71,551 Palestinians have been killed and 171,372 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, many of them children.

UNICEF, the UN’s agency for children, said earlier this month that more than 100 Palestinian children had been killed in Gaza, even since the start of the ceasefire that began in October last year.

‘Make her voice echo’

Responding to the nomination, filmmaker Ben Hania said her motivation for the film had been to amplify Hind Rajab’s voice around the world, The Associated Press news agency reported.

“When I started making this movie, my main obsession or idea, because the voice of this little girl wasn’t heard when it was needed, was how to make her voice echo all over the world,” she said.

“So the fact that we are nominated today, it’s a spotlight that the voice of Hind Rajab needs.”

She said she was grateful that members of the academy who had voted for her film had recognised “that cinema is not always an escape”.

“It can be confrontational. It can be something about truth, and about what is happening and something that we should not look away from.”

No evidence of exchange of fire

The Israeli government initially claimed that none of its forces were present when the Rajab family was killed, later asserting that the 335 bullet holes found in the family’s car were the result of an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and armed Palestinian fighters.

However, a subsequent investigation of satellite imagery and audio from that day by the London-based research group Forensic Architecture identified only the presence of several Israeli Merkava tanks in the vicinity of the Rajab family’s car and no evidence of any exchange of fire.

The overall commander of the tanks present during the family’s killing was Colonel Beni Aharon of Israel’s 401 Armoured Brigade.

Colonel Aharon is already the subject of a criminal complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation, which uses social media footage captured by Israeli soldiers during operations in Gaza as the basis for war crimes prosecutions.

Third-time nominated

The Oscar nod is not the first industry recognition for Ben Hania or her film.

The director has twice been nominated for Academy Awards, for her 2020 film, The Man Who Sold His Skin and her 2023 documentary, Four Daughters.

The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Grand Jury Prize Silver Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in September, where it received a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere.

The 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15 in Los Angeles, hosted by Conan O’Brien.