Israel investigates IDF killing of Hind Rajab after repeated denials

GAZA, Palestine (MNTV) — The Israeli military has acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers fired on the vehicle carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed alongside six relatives in Gaza in 2024, and announced a criminal investigation into the incident.

The admission marks a significant reversal from Israel’s earlier account, which claimed that its forces were not operating in the area when Hind and her relatives were killed.

Hind initially survived the attack on the family vehicle and remained trapped inside for hours. During a desperate telephone call with Palestinian Red Crescent operators, the frightened child repeatedly pleaded for rescuers to come and save her.

Hind told the operators that Israeli tanks were near the vehicle. A Red Crescent dispatcher remained on the phone with her for hours while the organization sought Israeli military authorization to send an ambulance into the area.

The ambulance was eventually permitted to approach. Paramedics Yusuf Al-Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun headed toward the location, but communications with the rescuers and Hind were subsequently lost.

The Palestinian Red Crescent later said the two paramedics were killed when their ambulance was attacked and accused Israeli forces of deliberately striking the rescue team despite prior coordination for the mission.

Hind’s body and the bodies of her relatives were recovered several days later.

The Israeli military now says its review found that soldiers fired at the vehicle because it was allegedly travelling contrary to an advance warning issued to residents. 

It also attributed the decision to investigate the case to what it described as failures in coordinating the ambulance’s movement.

The case has drawn international condemnation and become one of the most disturbing examples of the dangers faced by Palestinian children and emergency responders during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The United Nations has previously cited Hind’s killing in a commission of inquiry that accused Israel of war crimes, allegations Israel rejects.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, which has campaigned over alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, rejected the newly announced investigation as an inadequate mechanism for accountability. 

The organization said Israel’s internal investigations could not be considered credible substitutes for an independent investigation.

The Israeli military also announced a criminal investigation into the deaths of 15 Palestinians, including medical workers and a UN employee, killed in southern Gaza in March 2025.

Israeli forces opened fire on a convoy consisting of ambulances, a fire engine and a clearly marked UN vehicle in the Tal Al-Sultan area of Rafah during an emergency response.

The bodies of the victims were discovered approximately a week later near their damaged vehicles.

Israel initially claimed that its troops had fired at suspicious vehicles travelling without headlights or emergency lights. The military subsequently acknowledged that this account was incorrect after video recovered from the phone of one of the dead paramedics showed the convoy using emergency lights.

The IDF now says its review found reasonable grounds to suspect criminal misconduct and has therefore ordered a criminal investigation.

However, the military declined to open criminal investigations into several other incidents involving the deaths of humanitarian workers, including seven World Central Kitchen employees killed in Deir Al-Balah in 2024 and four Médecins Sans Frontières workers killed in separate incidents.

World Central Kitchen condemned the Israeli military prosecutor’s account of its employees’ deaths and called for an independent investigation.

The announcement comes amid mounting international scrutiny of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and pressure on its military to demonstrate that alleged violations are properly investigated rather than shielded by institutional impunity.

Israeli human rights organizations have repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of military investigations, arguing that complaints against soldiers and commanders rarely result in indictments and that convictions, when they occur, often carry disproportionately light penalties.

The renewed investigation into Hind’s killing therefore raises a broader question about whether Israel’s internal accountability mechanisms can provide meaningful justice for Palestinian victims, particularly when the military itself is responsible for investigating alleged abuses by its personnel.

Hind’s case has remained a powerful symbol of the civilian cost of Israel’s war in Gaza, immortalized in the Oscar-nominated film The Voice of Hind Rajab and remembered for the child’s final hours spent pleading for help while trapped in a vehicle under Israeli fire.