The Israeli military has finally admitted that its soldiers opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Palestinian child Hind Rajab and six family members in Gaza in 2024. In a statement Wednesday, the military said it had ordered a criminal investigation into the incident through the military police.
The Guardian reported the development.
On January 29, 2024, the car carrying Hind’s family came under attack while fleeing an Israeli assault on Gaza City. Trapped inside the vehicle, the young child Hind spent three continuous hours on the phone with the Palestinian Red Crescent, pleading for her life. An ambulance sent to rescue her was also attacked, killing two health workers.
Israel had until now denied any military presence in the area, but an independent investigation found evidence implicating an Israeli tank. After two and a half long years, Israeli forces admitted on Wednesday that their soldiers had indeed fired on the car and the ambulance.
Alongside the Hind Rajab case, a criminal investigation has also been ordered into the killing of 15 health and aid workers in Rafah, southern Gaza, in March 2025.
After the attack, soldiers used bulldozers to bury the bodies and the vehicle in a mass grave. However, Israel has said it has decided not to pursue criminal proceedings against anyone over the April 2024 airstrike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed foreign aid workers.
Human rights organizations say that while Israeli forces have announced such investigations into the killing of Palestinians before, those found responsible are, in practice, almost never actually brought to justice.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report