Israel says its forces fired on Hind Rajab's car and orders a criminal investigation
Nine people were killed that day in January 2024 — the girl, six of her relatives and the two medics sent to reach her. Her grandmother has rejected the inquiry and asked for an independent international one instead.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that its forces had fired on a car in which five-year-old Hind Rajab was travelling with her family in Gaza City, and that it was opening a criminal investigation into the deaths of the nine people killed there on 29 January 2024. It is the first time the military has accepted that its fire hit the car.
Six of the girl's relatives were killed in the initial shooting, as the family tried to leave an area under bombardment near a petrol station in the city. She survived it and stayed on the phone, first with relatives and then with the Palestine Red Crescent, asking for someone to come for her.
Contact was lost as the crew sent for her approached. Two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were killed on that run, which brought the day's toll to nine.
Her grandmother rejected the investigation before it began. She said the family has no confidence in Israeli inquiries or in the Israeli judiciary, that she believes the car was hit deliberately, and that what the family wants is an independent international investigation — one covering every Palestinian child killed in the war, not Hind alone.
The military announced a second criminal investigation at the same time, into 15 emergency and aid workers killed in March 2025.
Rights groups and bereaved families met both announcements with scepticism, pointing to how rarely Israeli military inquiries have ended in convictions. That is the grandmother's objection in its plainest form: the investigation into who fired is to be run by the institution that fired, two and a half years after the day it is examining.