On January 29, 2024, a five-year-old girl named Hind Rajab was trapped inside a bullet-riddled car in Gaza City, surrounded by the bodies of six of her relatives. She was alive. She was on the phone. She was asking for help.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society dispatched an ambulance. Israeli military coordination unit COGAT gave the ambulance explicit clearance to proceed. The paramedics — Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun — drove toward her with sirens blaring, in a clearly marked medical vehicle, on a route the Israeli military knew.
They never reached her.
Their ambulance was struck by Israeli tank fire. Both paramedics were killed. Hind’s remains were found 12 days later, within metres of theirs.
For over two years, the Israeli military has refused to offer a credible explanation. It first claimed no forces were present. Then it claimed the 335 bullet holes in the family’s car resulted from an exchange of fire with Palestinian fighters — a claim directly contradicted by Forensic Architecture, the multidisciplinary research group at Goldsmiths, University of London, whose investigation of satellite imagery and audio from that day found only Israeli Merkava tanks in the vicinity, and no evidence of any exchange of fire whatsoever.
Now, a new report by global campaign group Avaaz — shared exclusively with Al Jazeera — presents what it calls substantial evidence of a deliberate double-tap attack: an initial strike on the family vehicle, followed by a second, deliberately timed strike on the medical responders who came to help.
The findings are damning.
Because COGAT had granted the ambulance clearance, Israeli forces knew exactly when the paramedics would arrive and the route they would take. Approximately three hours passed between the initial attack on the family car and the strike on the ambulance — more than enough time, the report concludes, for situational awareness, communication, and command decision-making. No warning was given before the ambulance was struck. The weapon used was a 120mm tank round.
“It documents over 40 human rights violations and ties together how those violations are evidence of a double-tap attack on the hospital workers,” the Avaaz report states. “Each violation builds to an alarming possibility: Israel is not only killing Palestinians — it is systematically killing those who try to save them.”
Sarah Andrew, Avaaz’s legal director, told Al Jazeera she was struck above all by the weaponry used, the timing, and the absence of any warning. “I am absolutely convinced that this is another case of double tap,” she said. “I want them to appear before the ICC and hear what on earth was in their mind when they ordered 120mm tank rounds to be fired into an ambulance.”
The Hind Rajab Foundation responded directly: “The double tap arguments are consistent with our analysis as well. We are continuously preparing for new filings against responsible soldiers in various jurisdictions. We have 24 names of responsible perpetrators.”
This is not an isolated incident. More than 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed during Israel’s war on Gaza. Marked ambulances have been struck repeatedly. The pattern Avaaz identifies — kill, wait, strike the rescuers — has played out across the Strip throughout the conflict.
A double-tap attack on a medical vehicle, carrying personnel who had obtained explicit military clearance, constitutes a war crime under both the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute. There is no military necessity argument. There is no exchange-of-fire defense that holds. There is only a tank, a clearance form, a blaring siren, and a decision someone made.
Hind Rajab was five years old. She spent her final hours alone, on the phone, asking for help that was already on its way — until Israel made sure it never arrived.
The ICC must act. The soldiers responsible must be named, tried, and held accountable. And the world must understand that what happened to Hind was not a tragedy of war. It was a deliberate choice.