It was brave of distributor Manoj Nandwana to try to bring The Voice of Hind Rajab to Indian cinemas. Ahead of the Oscars on March 15, Nandwana was planning a March 6 release of Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated docufiction about the slow death of six-year-old Hind in Gaza in 2024. To do so, the distributor submitted an application to the Central Board of Film Certification.
But the CBFC, more commonly known as the censor board, rejected the film, citing India’s diplomatic ties with Israel, Nandwana told Variety.
A CBFC member told him that “if it [the film] gets released it would break up the India-Israel relationship”, Nandwana told Variety.
“I told them, the India-Israel relationship is so strong that it’s idiotic to think this movie will break it,” Nandwana added.
In an Instagram post, Kaouther Ben Hania wrote, “I grew up loving India… Is the honeymoon between the ‘world’s largest democracy’ and the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ so fragile that a film could break it?”
In reality, the chances of the CFBC permitting The Voice of Hind Rajab were next to nil. This decision by the censor board is only the latest reminder of the restrictions on Palestinian cinema in India since Israel launched its assault on Gaza in 2023.
After decades of taking a principled stand against Israel’s occupation of Palestine, India has been rapidly transforming its relationship with Israel. But even before Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in February during which the prime minister declared that New Delhi stands with Tel Aviv “firmly, with full conviction, in this moment and beyond”, Indians were being shielded from Palestinian cinema.
Such films are typically screened at festivals, but still require the approval of the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. While a few short films have sneaked through, the more high-profile titles have not been able to scale the censor’s stone wall.
In December, the ministry ordered the International Film Festival of Kerala to drop a package of films on Palestine (The Voice of Hind Rajab was not part of it). The state government-run culture department, which organises the festival, initially put up a fight but eventually gave in to the Central ministry’s diktat.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is among a clutch of films that came out in 2024 and 2025, amidst escalating violence in Gaza and reports of unconscionable attacks by the Israeli security forces and settlers on Palestinians. These recent films follow a steady stream of documentaries by Palestinians and sympathetic Israelis, as well as fictional dramas by such directors as Elia Suleiman, Hany Abu-Assad and Annemarie Jacir.
These films have emerged at a time when Palestine faces an unprecedented onslaught on its very existence.
In 2024, No Other Land won the Best Documentary Feature Film at the Oscars. Made over several years by four Palestinian and Israel activists, the film exposes the brutal campaign by Israeli soldiers and settlers to uproot the residents of a village in the West Bank.
In 2025, four important films about Palestine surfaced.
Annemarie Jacir’s period drama Palestine 36 rigorously traces the roots of the conflict to British colonial policies. Cherien Dabas’s All That Left of You is the heart-rending chronicle of a Palestinian family between the 1940s and the 2020s.
Sepideh Farsi’s wrenching documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk recounts her video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassaouna before Hassaouna was killed in an Israeli air strike in April 2025. Farsi’s film shares with The Voice of Hind Rajab the attempt to commit a personal tragedy to posterity, as well as the powerlessness faced by filmmakers in saving Palestinians from sure death.
Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is a hybrid of documentary and fiction. The Tunisian director had pulled off a similar feat in her beguiling Four Daughters (2023), which uses actors to revisit the experiences of a Tunisian family whose two daughters joined the Islamic State.
The Voice of Hind Rajab combines staged scenes with audio clips of the six-year-old girl’s last day on earth that were recorded by Palestine Red Crescent Society dispatchers. On January 29, 2024, Hind was in a car with her uncle’s family as they tried to escape shelling on their neighbourhood. The car came under severe fire. Only Hind survived, but not for long.
An uncle in Germany called the Red Crescent office 84 km away from Gaza to see if they could rescue Hind. Ben Hania recreates the Red Crescent’s response through actors who play the dispatchers. Hind’s terrified voice is from the actual recordings.
“Stay with me,” the child pleads. “There’s no time. Quickly. There’s no one with me. They are shooting. There is no one left but me. Please do not leave me.”
It soon becomes evident that Hind is surrounded by the corpses of her relatives. Omar (Motaz Malhees), the first dispatcher to talk, to Hind. is overwhelmed. He rails against his boss Mahdi (Amer Hlehel) for not arranging a rescue vehicle on time. Mahdi has to jump through hoops to divert the only ambulance in the area to Hind’s location.
Omar and his supervisor Rana (Saja Kilani) keep talking to Hind. Rana struggles to keep up the pretense that help for Hind is only minutes away, even as Hind says that she is under fire and can see a tank in front of the car.
Ben Hania’s decision to resort to dramatisation has been criticised for taking the attention away from Hind’s ordeal. But this intervention through an excellent bunch of performers, especially Saja Kilani, powerfully reveals the severe restraints placed on the Red Crescent in the region.
The complicated procedure that the Red Crescent must follow to rescue Palestinians in such situations appears to be a function of bureaucracy, until the ambulance that is on the verge of reaching Hind is itself blown up.
The intense close-ups filmed on a hand-held camera bring out the escalating feelings of anguish, frustration and helplessness. The voices of the actors matches the tone of the real-life responders.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is as hard to listen to as it is hard to watch. The film recreates a war crime as it is unfolding.
The censor board’s decision to proscribe The Voice of Hind Rajab is unsurprising. The film contains incontrovertible proof that unarmed Palestinian civilians were confronted with a direct attack that they were in no position to counter. Hind’s appeals bear witness to her own erasure.
The gutted vehicle provides proof of what its occupants went through. Hind’s voice ensures that the truth about her killing will not be buried.
Also read:
The Palestine-sized hole in the Kerala film festival programme
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!