Military investigation announced more than two years after Palestinian child, relatives and two paramedics were killed in Gaza
The Israeli military has acknowledged that its troops fired on the car in which five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab was trapped with members of her family in Gaza, reversing its initial insistence that Israeli forces had not been close enough to attack the vehicle.
Hind was killed in Gaza City in January 2024 alongside six relatives. Two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics sent to rescue her were also killed when their ambulance was struck after, according to the organisation, its journey had been coordinated with the Israeli authorities.
Israel announced on 19 August that its military police would investigate the deaths. A separate inquiry will examine the killing of 15 Palestinians, including emergency workers and a United Nations employee, at Tel al-Sultan in March 2025.
The decision represents a significant change from Israel’s earliest account of the Hind Rajab case. However, human rights organisations and independent investigators have questioned whether the new inquiries will lead to criminal charges or meaningful accountability.
A family’s attempt to escape
Hind was travelling through Gaza City on 29 January 2024 with her aunt, uncle and four cousins after the family attempted to leave the area following Israeli evacuation instructions.
The four other children in the vehicle were 15-year-old Layan Hamada, 13-year-old Raghad Hamada, 11-year-old Mohammed Hamada and seven-year-old Sara Hamada.
After the car came under sustained fire, Layan telephoned the Palestine Red Crescent and reported that a tank was nearby and that members of her family had been killed. Gunfire and her screams could be heard before the call ended.
Hind, wounded but still alive, subsequently remained on the telephone with Red Crescent dispatchers for several hours. Recordings released by the organisation captured the child repeatedly describing tanks near the vehicle and pleading to be rescued.
The Red Crescent eventually dispatched paramedics Yusuf al-Zeino, 35, and Ahmed al-Madhoun, 37. The organisation said it had spent approximately three hours arranging safe passage for their ambulance.
Contact with the crew was lost as the ambulance reached the area. Both paramedics were later found dead inside its burned-out wreckage, about 50 metres from the family car.
Israeli forces withdrew from the immediate area before the bodies of Hind, her relatives and the two emergency workers were recovered on 10 February.
Denials gradually collapse
The Israeli military initially said it was unfamiliar with the incident and was examining what had happened. It subsequently issued a more categorical denial, claiming that its troops had not been near the car or within firing range.
That account was challenged by witness statements, satellite images, telephone recordings and investigations conducted by several international organisations and news outlets.
An official from COGAT, the Israeli body responsible for coordinating civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, later confirmed that arrangements had been made concerning the ambulance. This contradicted the military’s suggestion that coordination had been unnecessary because Israeli forces were not present.
In April 2024, the United States State Department said Israel had acknowledged that military units had been operating in the area, although Israeli officials continued to deny involvement in the attack.
The explanation changed again when the Israeli authorities suggested that the numerous bullet marks on the car might have resulted from fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants. Material distributed on behalf of the Israeli state later raised the possibility of Palestinian gunfire or mortar fire.
Israel’s latest account accepts that its troops fired upon the vehicle but says the car had been travelling contrary to an evacuation route announced to residents. The admission abandons the earlier claim that Israeli forces were not within range.
Recordings and satellite images
Evidence contradicting Israel’s original denial had been available for more than two years.
An analysis commissioned by The Washington Post detected at least 62 shots fired over approximately six seconds during Layan’s final telephone call. An acoustic specialist reportedly concluded that the firing rate was more consistent with weapons commonly carried by Israeli forces than with rifles generally used by Hamas fighters.
Satellite imagery showed Israeli armoured vehicles operating close to the car. Planet Labs images examined for The Washington Post placed at least four armoured vehicles roughly 300 metres away, with more than a dozen others visible within a quarter of a mile.
A separate Sky News investigation identified at least 15 Israeli military vehicles in the vicinity. Footage published by the Israeli military itself was geolocated to positions less than 650 metres from the family’s vehicle.
Weapons specialists examining photographs of the car concluded that many of the bullet holes appeared consistent with a 7.62mm machine gun. Several types of Israeli armoured vehicle operating in Gaza carry weapons of that calibre.
Forensic Architecture, a research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, reconstructed the incident and identified 335 projectile impacts on the car. Its analysis concluded that the vehicle had been fired upon from close range and that those responsible were likely to have been able to see that children were inside.
Ambulance attack investigated
The destruction of the Red Crescent ambulance has raised further questions about the conduct of Israeli forces.
Recordings indicate that Red Crescent officials believed access had been approved before sending the two paramedics. A COGAT route map reviewed during a subsequent investigation also reportedly showed that the journey had been coordinated.
Munitions specialists who examined the wreckage concluded that the damage was consistent with a direct hit from a large projectile, possibly a tank round.
In October 2024, a United Nations-mandated Commission of Inquiry attributed the deaths of Hind, her relatives and the two paramedics to Israeli forces. It said the killing of the family and the attack on the ambulance could constitute the war crimes of wilful killing and attacking a civilian object.
In a further finding published in June 2026, the commission said Israel’s 401st Armoured Brigade had fired deliberately on the car from close range while aware that children were inside. It also held the brigade responsible for striking the ambulance.
Israel has disputed accusations that its forces deliberately target civilians and has repeatedly maintained that its military operations are directed against Hamas and other armed organisations.
Concerns over military accountability
The announcement of an Israeli investigation comes amid scrutiny from the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Israel rejects the court’s allegations and contests its jurisdiction.
Under the principle of complementarity, the ICC normally intervenes when national authorities are unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate alleged international crimes. Critics fear Israel may use a limited number of domestic investigations to argue that outside intervention is unnecessary.
Past figures have contributed to those concerns. Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din reported that 219 Palestinian deaths in the occupied West Bank were brought to the military’s attention between 2018 and 2022, but only one resulted in a prosecution.
Research by Action on Armed Violence examined 52 cases in which Israel announced or promised investigations into alleged misconduct in Gaza between October 2023 and June 2025. It found that 46 had either been closed without fault being established or remained unresolved without a publicly reported conclusion.
Only one case in that sample produced a custodial sentence. It concerned the repeated assault of bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention centre, for which an Israeli reservist received seven months in prison.
Other official explanations challenged
The Hind Rajab case is not the first in which Israel’s initial account has been substantially revised.
Following the fatal shooting of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in 2022, Israeli officials initially pointed towards Palestinian gunmen. The military later accepted there was a strong possibility that she had been struck accidentally by Israeli fire.
Five Palestinian boys killed near a Gaza cemetery in August 2022 were also initially said to have died because of a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. An Israeli military investigation later concluded that an Israeli air strike had killed them.
Israel likewise denied using white phosphorus during its 2008–09 Gaza offensive before subsequently acknowledging its use.
No criminal inquiry into aid workers’ deaths
Israel has separately decided not to open a criminal investigation into the killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers on 1 April 2024.
The aid workers were killed in three successive Israeli strikes against three vehicles. Their movements, identities and intended route had been communicated to the Israeli authorities in advance.
An Israeli investigation found that troops had incorrectly believed one person associated with the convoy was armed. An independent Australian review later concluded that the attacks on the second and third vehicles breached Israeli military procedures and rules of engagement.
The Israeli authorities nevertheless decided that the available evidence did not create a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. World Central Kitchen has condemned that conclusion.
Justice remains uncertain
Israel’s admission that its soldiers fired on the car carrying Hind Rajab marks an important reversal, but it does not by itself establish who ordered the attack, who carried it out or whether anyone will face prosecution.
The evidence gathered by journalists, weapons specialists, satellite analysts, the Palestine Red Crescent and United Nations investigators had already severely undermined the original denial. The newly announced investigation must now determine why a civilian vehicle containing children was subjected to sustained gunfire and why an ambulance sent to rescue the only known survivor was destroyed.
More than two years after Hind’s frightened voice was heard pleading for help from inside the bullet-riddled car, the central question is no longer whether Israeli troops were present or whether they fired.
It is whether the truth, acknowledged only after repeated denials, will finally be followed by justice.
