BARCELONA, SPAIN – JANUARY 29, 2026: Hundreds of people gathered on Somorrostro beach where a huge canvas with Hind Rajab's portrait was unfurled in an act of solidarity. PHOTO: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia
Protesters unfurled a giant portrait of the five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab on a beach in Barcelona on Thursday, two years after her death in the war in the Gaza Strip, and her mother appealed to the international community to pay attention to the plight of children in the Palestinian enclave, reports Reuters.
Hind's desperate pleas for help while trapped in a car under Israeli fire were played out in the film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival last year and is also nominated for an Oscar.
During the Israeli offensive in response to the Hamas assault on October 7, 2023, Hind Rajab was stuck in her car for hours, pleading with Palestinian doctors by cellphone to send help after her aunt, uncle and three cousins had already died.
When the ambulance finally arrived, telephone contact with the girl and including the rescuers who arrived there was lost. Twelve days later, the girl's body, the bodies of her relatives and the bodies of two ambulance workers were recovered from the area.
In Barcelona, several hundred people raised a 55-meter-long canvas with the girl's face, next to a large Palestinian flag and the message “Free the children of Gaza.”
People hold a giant portrait of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed during the war in Gaza, on a beach in Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday. #GazaCeasefire https://t.co/vbqYe5k4ep pic.twitter.com/AFYXKSWNps
— Gulf Today (@gulftoday) January 29, 2026
“The children of Gaza are not asking for mercy. They are asking for the right to live, to sleep without fear, to play without bombs, to grow up, simply to grow up,” said Hind's mother Wesam Hamada, 29, as she watched the giant portrait of her daughter being raised.
🇵🇸 Barcelona deploys a record portrait of Hind Rajab, the girl murdered in Gaza by the Israeli army | @RTVECatalunya pic.twitter.com/y6PFUMJ4QU
— RTVE News (@rtvenoticies) January 29, 2026
“The voice of Hind Rajab didn't stay in the car, it traveled across borders,” said Jordanian-Canadian actress Saja Kilani, who played a Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic in “The Voice of Hind Rajab” and attended the protest on the Iberian beach.
Asked this week about the deaths of Hind and her relatives, the Israeli military said the incident was still under investigation and declined to comment further.
Israeli forces say they have never deliberately targeted civilians in the Gaza war, accusing Hamas militants of endangering their lives by using them as “shields”.
The United Nations said the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains “dire” three months after a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, after a two-year war that destroyed the coastal Palestinian enclave. Children are among the worst hit by a lack of shelter, food and basic services, including health care, aid officials say.
