Israel‘s military will open internal investigations over its troops’ high-profile killings in Gaza of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in January 2024 and 15 emergency and aid workers in March 2025, it said on Wednesday, although rights groups said such probes rarely lead to convictions.
Hind’s body was recovered from a car riddled with bullets in Gaza City days after she was last heard from in a desperate, hours-long phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on January 29, 2024.
“Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division,” the military said on Wednesday.
Israeli rights groups say that criminal misconduct investigations into Israeli troops over the killing of Palestinians rarely lead to convictions.
Dan Owen, a researcher in the Yesh Din rights organisation, said that over the last decade only a “tiny” proportion of investigations had led to indictments while growing political pressure “further deters Israeli law-enforcement authorities from holding those responsible accountable, even when clear evidence does exist”.
Alongside the Hind Rajab case, the military published reviews into four other high-profile incidents in Gaza, saying it was also launching a criminal probe into the 2025 killings of 15 Palestinians including medics and humanitarian personnel.
The voice of Hind Rajab
Hind Rajab had made the emergency call after her family’s car came under fire during an attempt to flee Gaza City as Israeli troops advanced in the Palestinian territory’s north.
Her body was eventually recovered along with those of six relatives and two Red Crescent rescue workers sent to find her.
Her death sparked international outrage and calls for an independent investigation, and the original audio recordings of her emergency call were incorporated into the Oscar-nominated feature film “The Voice of Hind Rajab”.
Director Kaouther Ben Hania on five-year-old Hind Rajab’s tragic cry for help from Gaza
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The Israeli military said on Wednesday that its review into the incident indicated troops had “fired at a vehicle that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advanced notice” that had been given to residents in the area.
“As a result of the fire, five of the vehicle’s passengers were killed, and two survived: Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada,” it said.
The military said that following Rajab and Hamada’s phone call to rescue authorities, the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance had been coordinated in order to evacuate the casualties.
“However, according to the allegations raised, upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired toward it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it,” it added.
2025 killing of medics
The military said criminal investigations would not be launched into the three other incidents it reviewed, involving the killing of employees from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), both of which drew international scrutiny.
The military’s criminal investigation into the death of the 15 Palestinians, including the medical personnel, after shots were fired at their ambulances in southern Gaza in March 2025, in another incident that drew international condemnation.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said at the time that a team of first responders was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, and that other emergency and aid teams were hit one after another over several hours while searching for their missing colleagues.
Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
The bodies were found buried near Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah in what OCHA described as a mass grave.
“On March 23, 2025, three shooting incidents occurred toward different rescue vehicles, including a fire truck, ambulances, and a UN vehicle, during an ambush carried out by IDF troops against operatives of the Hamas terrorist organisation” the military said.
It claimed that of the 15 killed, “six of those … were identified as belonging to Hamas“.
It said troops had then decided to “crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh”.
“Following review of the findings, having found that the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident,” it said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
