International Glance
The anguished final pleas of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car under Israeli fire are retold in “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a searing new film that received a rapturous premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.
“Hind’s story carries the weight of an entire people,” one of the actors, Saja Kilani, told reporters in a statement she read out on behalf of the whole cast and crew ahead of the screening.
The true-life drama focuses on telephone operators from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society who tried for hours to reassure the trapped Hind Rajab as she begged to be rescued from the car, where her aunt, uncle and three cousins already lay dead.
I’m so scared, please come,” the little girl says, with the original recordings of her increasingly desperate calls to the dispatchers used to powerful effect throughout the film.
The real question is, how have we let a child beg for life? No one can live in peace while even one child is forced to plead for survival. ... Let Hind Rajab’s voice echo around the world,” Kilani said.
IDF reservists were answering the latest call-up to invade Gaza City, but likely in smaller numbers and slower than in the past recruitments, an IDF briefing appeared to clarify on Wednesday.
Donald Trump took no apparent action at the passing of his latest deadline for Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was “very disappointed” in the Russian ruler, and was planning on “doing something to help people live”, said the US president, without any specifics. He was speaking on the radio show of Scott Jennings, a US conservative pundit.
The head of the European Union's executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has spoken of her outrage at Russia's deadliest onslaught on Kyiv since July - which also damaged the EU's delegation office in the Ukrainian capital.
Israeli forces carried out a rare daytime raid on Tuesday in the heart of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered. Dozens of Palestinians were wounded, according to local medics, as people throwing stones scattered after gunfire and tear gas.
At least two current and three former Microsoft employees – as well as two other tech workers – were arrested at the company’s headquarters after staging a sit-in demonstration at the company president’s office urging that Microsoft cut ties with the Israeli government.
