For the first time, Israel’s military has confirmed that its soldiers fired on a car carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and members of her family in Gaza, and has opened a criminal investigation into the incident.
Rights groups caution that such investigations rarely result in convictions.
Hind spent hours trapped inside the vehicle, pleading with Palestinian emergency dispatchers by phone to send help, as her aunt, uncle, and three cousins lay dead around her. An ambulance dispatched to reach her lost contact with both the girl and its responders shortly after arriving at the scene. Twelve days later, the bodies of Hind, her relatives, and two paramedics were recovered. Israel had previously denied its troops were even in the area; it now says an internal investigation found that soldiers opened fire on her vehicle as it approached their position, and that a shell was also fired at the Red Crescent ambulance sent to save her.
The military said the same fact-finding body will investigate the March 2025 killing of 15 emergency and aid workers, but found no grounds to pursue charges in three other cases, including the 2024 killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers. Hind’s grandmother, for whom the girl was named, told Reuters the family has little faith in Israel’s judiciary and is appealing instead to “the international justice system as a whole.” Her doubts echo those of Israeli rights groups: a researcher with Yesh Din noted that only a small fraction of military misconduct investigations have led to indictments over the past decade, with political pressure further discouraging accountability.
More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the war began in 2023. A ceasefire declared last October halted major fighting, though strikes have continued, killing more than 1,200 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers since the truce.