The last time six-year-old Hind Rajab was heard from, she was surrounded by dead relatives and trapped in the family’s car after it came under fire in ravaged Gaza City, AFP reports.

“She was scared, freaking out, and was wounded in her back, her hand and her foot,” said her grandfather, Baha Hamada, one of the last people to speak to the girl on the phone.

“She kept asking me to come and get her,” Hamada added, weeping uncontrollably as he recalled the heart-wrenching call.

Hind was with Hamada’s brother Bashar, his sister-in-law and other children in the car as they attempted to flee from approaching Israeli forces in Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa area a week ago.

But, Hamada said, they ended up in the paths of Israeli tanks and were fired on. He said he was initially able to reach Bashar’s daughter Layan, who told him that her parents and her three brothers were killed, and that she and Hind were alive.

“We tried to calm her down and told her we would call an ambulance,” said the 58-year-old.

But when rescuers from the Palestinian Red Crescent spoke to 15-year-old Layan on the phone, they said they were cut off from the call by what sounded like gunfire. Both Hamada and the organisation say Layan was killed in the shooting.