The lifeless body of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, who pleaded for hours for help to be rescued after she and her family came under fire from Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, was found on Saturday along with the bodies of five members of her family and two ambulance workers who went to rescue her. Human remains were found by relatives 12 days after the girl asked for help.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has accused the Israeli army of deliberately attacking an ambulance it sent to the scene after spending three hours on the phone with Hind Rajab, a girl who pleaded for help as gunfire rang out around her.

“The occupation deliberately targeted the crew of the Red Crescent, despite prior coordination to allow an ambulance to arrive on the scene to rescue Hind,” the Red Crescent said in a statement, according to News.ro.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the Red Crescent statement.

Little girl’s family car riddled with bullets

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Hind’s body was found by family members along with the bodies of his uncle, aunt and their three children in a car near a roundabout in the Tel al-Hawa suburb of Gaza City.

Semiluna Roşie posted a photo of the ambulance, which shows that it is almost completely burnt. Al Jazeera footage from the scene showed an ambulance just steps away from the family’s car, a black Kia Picanto, damaged and riddled with bullets.

Hind’s plight, revealed in harrowing audio recordings of her speaking in terror to rescuers 12 days ago, highlighted the impossible conditions for civilians in the face of Israel’s four-month assault on the Gaza Strip. According to local health authorities, more than 28,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7.

Throughout the war, the Israeli military said it was taking steps to avoid civilian casualties, but faced sharp international criticism for its high casualty figures.

Audio recordings released by the Red Crescent earlier this month show the call to dispatch first made by Hind’s cousin, a teenager, Layan Hamadeh, who said an Israeli tank was approaching before gunshots and screams were heard. Believed to be the only survivor, Hind spent three hours talking to dispatchers who tried to calm her down as they prepared to send an ambulance. “Come and get me,” Hind can be heard crying desperately in another audio recording. “I’m so scared, please come,” begged the little girl.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that after coordinating with the Israeli military through intermediaries and receiving the green light, it decided it was safe enough to send an ambulance with two crew members, Youssef Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun. “In our last communication with the team, they said the occupation forces fired a laser beam at them. We heard gunfire and then an explosion,” said Nebal Farsah, a spokesman for the Red Crescent in Ramallah.

After that, contact with the ambulance crew and Hind was lost, leaving their families, colleagues and many people around the world to worry about their fate.

“While we continue to investigate exactly what happened, we want to reiterate that civilians must be protected – no child should have to experience the horror of death surrounded by the corpses of their family members. The fact that these were potentially Hind’s last moments is devastating and unbearable,” a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters.