The Israeli military has acknowledged that its troops fired on a vehicle carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in 2024, announcing a criminal investigation into a case that provoked widespread international condemnation.
Hind Rajab’s body was found days after she was last heard during a harrowing, hours-long call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on 29 January 2024. She was discovered inside a car heavily damaged by gunfire in Gaza City.
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Until now, the Israeli military had said its forces were not operating near the location where the incident occurred.
“Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division,” the military said.
Hind Rajab placed the emergency call after gunfire struck her family’s car as they tried to escape Gaza City during an Israeli military advance.
Rescuers later recovered her body, along with those of six relatives and two Palestine Red Crescent workers who had been dispatched to reach her.
Her death triggered international outrage and demands for an independent inquiry. Recordings of her emergency call were later used in the Oscar-nominated feature film “The Voice of Hind Rajab”.
The Israeli military said its review found that soldiers had “fired at a vehicle that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advance notice” issued to residents in the area.
According to the military, the initial gunfire killed five people in the vehicle, while Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada remained alive.
It said the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance was subsequently coordinated so the injured could be evacuated.
“However, according to the allegations raised, upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired toward it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it,” it added.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, a Brussels-based legal organisation that seeks accountability for alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, said it had “no confidence” in the military investigation.
“These reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice,” the organisation said in a statement.
A video released by Palestinian Red Crescent in March 2025 showed ambulances travelling with their headlights on and emergency lights flashing before the workers were killed by the Israeli military
‘Deeply offensive’
The military said it would not open criminal investigations into three other cases, including the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen employees and four workers from Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Both incidents had faced intense international scrutiny.
Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen, said on X that the decision was “wrong and is painful for all of us. There was no excuse for their attacks on our team.”
The US-based charity described the decision as “inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive” and called for “an independent commission to investigate the airstrikes because the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own conduct”.
The military also said it had ordered a criminal investigation into the deaths of 15 Palestinian medics and humanitarian workers in southern Gaza in March 2025, another episode that prompted widespread outrage.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at the time that Israeli forces killed a first-response team on 23 March 2025. Other emergency and aid crews were then struck in succession over several hours as they searched for colleagues who were missing.
The dead included eight Red Crescent employees, six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and one worker from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
The victims’ bodies were later found in a mass grave near Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, according to OCHA.
The military said three separate shooting incidents took place that day, with troops firing on rescue vehicles, including a fire engine, ambulances and a UN vehicle, during an operation targeting Hamas operatives.
It said 15 Palestinians, including medics, were killed and claimed that “six of those killed were identified as belonging to Hamas”.
Afterward, troops decided to “crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh”, the military said.
“Having found that the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident,” it added.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at the time that the incident raised “further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military”.
