Israel Army Admits Firing On Car In Death Of 5 yr-Old Hind Rajab

Jerusalem: The Israeli military on Wednesday admitted its troops fired on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in 2024, saying it had ordered a criminal investigation into the killing which drew international outrage.

Hind Rajab's body was recovered from a car riddled with bullets in Gaza City days after she was last heard from in a desperate, hours-long phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on January 29, 2024.

The Israeli military had previously denied its troops were present in the area near the incident.

"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 on Wednesday.

The military also published reviews into four other high-profile incidents in Gaza, saying it was launching a criminal probe into the 2025 killing of 15 Palestinian medics and humanitarian personnel.

Hind Rajab had made the emergency call after her family's car came under fire during an attempt to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli advance.

Her body was eventually recovered along with those of six relatives and two Red Crescent rescuers sent to find her.

Her death sparked international outrage and calls for an independent investigation, and the original audio recordings of her emergency call were incorporated into the Oscar-nominated feature film "The Voice of Hind Rajab".

- Firing at vehicle -

The Israeli military said its findings indicated troops had "fired at a vehicle that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advance notice" that had been given to residents in the area.

It said the initial fire killed five of the passengers, while Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada survived.

The military said movement of a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance had then been coordinated in order to evacuate the casualties.

"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.

Israel's foreign ministry said the opening of the criminal investigation showed Israel to be a "law-abiding democracy" committed to the rule of law.

"Israel thoroughly investigates claims of misconduct, including amid the harrowing war against the jihadi organizations that seek its destruction," it said.

But the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Brussels-based legal organisation seeking to address alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, said it had "no confidence" in the Israeli military probe.

"These reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice," it said in a statement.

- 'Deeply offensive' -

The military said criminal investigations would not be launched into three other incidents, involving the killing of seven employees from World Central Kitchen and four from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), both of which drew international scrutiny.

The founder of World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres, 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 called the decision "inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive" and demanded an independent commission to investigate.

The military said it had ordered a criminal probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian medics and humanitarian personnel in southern Gaza in March 2025, in another incident that sparked widespread outrage.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at the time that a team of first responders was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, 2025 and that other emergency and aid teams were hit one after another over several hours while searching for their missing colleagues.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The bodies were found buried near Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah in what OCHA described as a mass grave.

The military said Wednesday that 15 Palestinians were killed including medics and charged that six dead were identified as belonging to Hamas.

Troops then decided to "crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh", it 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.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said at the time that the incident amounted to potential war crimes.

Chef José Andrés, founder of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, condemned the decision on X as “wrong and painful.”

The investigations involve killings that drew a heavy international outcry. Hind was trapped in a vehicle with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she too was killed in February 2024. After the shooting of the 15 medics in March 2025 , troops bulldozed their bodies into a mass grave.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, including tens of thousands of women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Rights groups and U.N. commissions have said the campaign amounts to genocide and that Israeli forces have committed a litany of war crimes, including indiscriminate use of force and deliberate killings of civilians.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it is targeting Hamas after its October 2023 attack on southern Israel. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded strip.

Israeli officials contend the country's justice system can address any violations by its troops, but rights groups say soldiers are almost never held accountable.

Wednesday's statement did not mention many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate, such as its strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The 5-year-old was the last alive in a stranded car Hind's grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation into her killing is not enough.

“An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable,” she said. “We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”

The military in Wednesday's statement admitted to firing at the car carrying the 5-year-old, four of her cousins and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.

As gunfire sprayed around them, the girl's cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling staff there her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan’s screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.

Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Hind and stayed on the line with her until contact was lost. Hind, her five relatives and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.

The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab foundation, told Al-Jazeera he considered the military investigations a “charade meant to whitewash the culprits instead of convicting them.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent also insists on an international investigation, according to Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the organization in Gaza. “Israeli measures are not enough,” he told the AP.

A movie docudrama about Hind's death, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” won international awards and was nominated for an Oscar .

The 15 medics had been trying to reach casualties In the killing of the paramedics, Israeli troops fired on an ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, then fired on other emergency vehicles that came looking for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings . Fifteen medics and emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Gaza's Civil Defense were killed.

Troops then bulldozed over the bodies and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on troops without headlights or emergency signals. But it backtracked after the footage emerged, showing the teams driving slowly with their emergency lights flashing and logos visible. A deputy commander was directed to step down over the killings.

“We are not obligated to prove the truth because it is already proven to the whole world,” Eid Azizi, a Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson, told the AP in a phone call. “We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed international humanitarian law.”

Israel will not criminally probe World Central Kitchen strike The military said it had decided against a criminal investigation into April 2024 airstrikes that hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven staffers.

The aid group, which distributes food in Gaza, said at the time it had coordinated with the military over the convoy's movement. The vehicles, which had the group’s logo on their roofs visible from the air, were left incinerated and mangled.

Wednesday's military statement said individuals in the vehicles were mistakenly identified as armed Hamas operatives. But it concluded that the commanders' decisions "did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” At the time, two officers were removed from their positions and three others reprimanded.

World Central Kitchen responded in a statement saying the military’s account of the strike was untrue, “conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame.” It called for an independent investigation.

The military also decided not to take criminal action over the killings of four staffers from Doctors Without Borders in two separate instances in November 2023 and February 2024.

What happens next? Military investigators will now take up the probes and present their findings to military prosecutors. The military advocate general can then decide to keep investigating, indict any soldiers involved or decline to charge them.

Any action will take a long time, if it comes at all, said Tal Steiner, head of the Israeli rights group HaMoked.

Indictments are very uncommon and convictions even more so, she said, recalling only one soldier who had spent time behind bars since Oct. 7, 2023, for alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners. That soldier was imprisoned for seven months under a June 2025 plea bargain.

“It’s very rare that soldiers accused of harming Palestinians even go to court ... and even rarer that they get a severe punishment,” Steiner said.

Just 0.17% of all military investigations launched during three Gaza operations from 2014 to 2022 led to prosecution, according to an analysis by Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

The war's toll keeps growing The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 others.

Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza since a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, killing at least 1,270 people, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children constitute about half of the dead.