Israel's military has acknowledged for the first time that its troops fired on the vehicle carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and her relatives in Gaza in January 2024, reversing its earlier assertion that Israeli forces weren't close enough to have carried out the shooting. The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that the case has been referred to military police for a criminal investigation.
The acknowledgment represents a significant shift in Israel's account of one of the Gaza war's most internationally recognized civilian deaths. An earlier military inquiry had said Israeli troops weren't present near the vehicle or within firing range when Rajab and members of her family were killed as they attempted to flee fighting in Gaza City.
The IDF now says its troops did open fire on the vehicle, but it hasn't concluded that soldiers deliberately targeted Rajab or her relatives. The military-police investigation is intended to determine the circumstances surrounding the shooting and whether individual service members bear criminal responsibility.
Rajab was trapped for hours inside the family vehicle in late January 2024 after her aunt, uncle and cousins were killed. During the ordeal, she remained in telephone contact with Palestinian emergency workers, pleading for someone to rescue her as she sat among the bodies of her relatives.
Recordings of the child's calls circulated internationally after her death and became among the most recognizable accounts of civilian suffering during the Gaza conflict. Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics dispatched to rescue her were also killed after an ambulance sent toward the vehicle was struck.
The case has continued to receive international attention more than two years later. "The Voice of Hind Rajab," a docudrama based on the child's final calls, received recognition at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award this year.
Israel disclosed its revised findings as part of what the military described as its first comprehensive report addressing allegations of misconduct and possible war crimes since the conflict began in October 2023. The IDF said it had conducted around 150 operational reviews, including examinations of five incidents considered particularly exceptional.
Two of those incidents have now been referred for criminal investigation: Rajab's killing and the deaths of 15 Palestinian paramedics in Tel al-Sultan. The decision marks a move beyond the military's initial operational-review process, although an investigation doesn't establish that a crime occurred.
The military declined to pursue criminal investigations in three other high-profile cases examined as part of the process. Among them was the April 2024 Israeli strike that killed seven workers from World Central Kitchen, prompting criticism from the aid organization's founder.
Chef José Andrés called the decision not to pursue a criminal investigation into the deaths of the World Central Kitchen employees "wrong and painful." The differing treatment of the cases is likely to intensify scrutiny over how Israel determines which wartime incidents warrant potential criminal prosecution.
Rajab's family, meanwhile, has expressed little confidence that the Israeli investigation will produce accountability. Speaking to Reuters from a displaced-persons camp in Gaza City, the child's grandmother, who is also named Hind Rajab, said the family doesn't trust Israel's judicial system and wants international institutions to investigate the killing.
Israeli human-rights organizations have long argued that military investigations into allegations involving Palestinian deaths rarely result in criminal convictions. The Hind Rajab Foundation, an advocacy organization established in the child's name, has similarly argued that military investigations frequently close without meaningful punishment and that convictions, when obtained, can result in comparatively limited sentences.
The Palestinian Red Crescent has also called for an international investigation into the episode. The organization, whose paramedics were killed while attempting to reach Rajab, has said Israel's internal investigative measures are "not enough."
