Israel has opened a criminal investigation into the killing of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, marking a significant shift after previously denying that its forces were in the area when she and members of her family were killed.
Rajab was trapped inside a car with six dead relatives after Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle as the family attempted to flee Gaza City.
For nearly two years, Israel maintained that its forces “were not present near the vehicle or within firing range” at the time of the attack.
The family had been travelling through northern Gaza when their vehicle came under intense fire. Rajab’s uncle was driving, while her mother, Wissam Hamada, had earlier become separated from her daughter after leaving the area on foot.
More than 300 bullets reportedly struck the vehicle, killing six members of the family.
Among them was Rajab’s 15-year-old cousin Layan, who had managed to contact emergency services during the attack.
“I’m so scared… please come,” she told rescuers shortly before she was killed.
Rajab survived the initial barrage and remained trapped inside the vehicle surrounded by the bodies of her relatives.
She stayed on the phone with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society for hours, repeatedly pleading for rescuers to reach her.
In one of her final recorded calls, she begged for her mother, saying: “Don’t leave me alone, Mama. I am tired. I am thirsty. And I am wounded.”
An ambulance carrying two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics was eventually dispatched to rescue her after receiving clearance from the Israeli military.
It never reached her.
The ambulance was struck by what was later identified as a 120mm tank round, killing both medics instantly.
Rajab’s body was recovered 12 days later from the bullet-riddled vehicle.
Recordings of her final conversations with emergency workers subsequently became one of the most widely recognised accounts of Palestinian children trapped under Israeli fire during the war on Gaza.
Family rejects Israeli investigation
Rajab’s family has rejected the credibility of the newly announced Israeli investigation.
Her grandmother told Anadolu Agency that the family had no confidence in either the Israeli military’s internal investigation process or the Israeli justice system.
She said the family believes the civilian vehicle carrying Rajab and her relatives was deliberately targeted.
The family has also stressed that its demand for accountability extends beyond Rajab’s killing and includes the thousands of Palestinian children killed during Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, named after the slain child, has similarly dismissed the Israeli probe as insufficient.
The organisation said an internal Israeli investigation should not be treated as a genuine path to justice, even if it ultimately concludes that Israeli forces committed war crimes.
For Rajab’s family and campaigners pursuing accountability, the central demand remains an independent investigation capable of establishing responsibility for the killing of Hind, her relatives and the two paramedics sent to rescue her.
