Israel’s military has acknowledged for the first time that its troops opened fire on a vehicle carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and her family in Gaza in 2024, and said a criminal investigation has now been ordered into the incident.
The announcement came more than two years after Hind was killed in one of the most widely reported cases of civilian deaths during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Hind Rajab Was Trapped in Car for Hours
Hind was killed on January 29, 2024, after the car carrying her family came under fire while they were attempting to flee Gaza City.
Her aunt, uncle and cousins were killed in the vehicle, while Hind survived and remained trapped inside. She spent hours on the phone pleading with Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) workers to rescue her.
An ambulance was sent to the location, but contact with both Hind and the rescuers was later lost. The bodies of Hind, her relatives and two ambulance workers were recovered 12 days later.
The recording of Hind’s desperate calls for help drew international attention and turned her death into a symbol of the suffering of children during the Gaza war.
Israeli Military Previously Denied Troops Were Nearby
The Israeli military had previously denied that its forces were operating in the area where Hind was killed.
Following an internal fact-finding review, however, the military said on Wednesday that troops had “fired at a vehicle that was approaching them.” This marks the first known admission by Israel that its forces fired on the car.
The military said the criminal investigation was ordered after a review of the findings and because of “alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance.”
Rights groups and independent investigations have previously raised questions over the circumstances of the killing. An investigation by Al Jazeera concluded that an Israeli tank was likely positioned only metres away from the vehicle.
Investigation Into Killing of 15 Palestinian Medics
The Israeli military also announced a criminal investigation into the deaths of 15 Palestinian emergency and aid workers who were killed in Gaza in March 2025.
The military said its decision followed a review of around 150 incidents involving the conduct of troops during the war.
However, it said criminal investigations would not be opened into three other incidents, including the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in April 2024 and four Doctors Without Borders workers killed in separate incidents.
Rights Groups Question Prospects of Justice
The decision to investigate Hind’s death has been met with scepticism from rights groups, which argue that Israeli military investigations into alleged wrongdoing by soldiers rarely result in convictions.
Dan Owen of Israeli rights organisation Yesh Din said only a “tiny” proportion of such investigations had resulted in indictments over the past decade.
Hind’s grandmother also called for an international investigation, saying the family “do[es] not trust the judiciary of the state of Israel.”
“We hope that justice will be from the entire world. We appeal to the international justice system as a whole,” she said.
The Hind Rajab Foundation likewise said it had no confidence in the Israeli justice system and called for accountability beyond Israel.
