Israel Admits Troops Fired on Hind Rajab's Car, Opens Criminal Probe Two and a Half Years Later

The Israeli military admitted Wednesday, August 19, that its own troops opened fire on the car carrying 5-year-old Hind Rajab and six family members in Gaza City on January 29, 2024, and separately fired on the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance sent to save her. The IDF has ordered a criminal investigation, according to the Associated Press, CBS News and CBC.

For more than two years, the IDF said no forces were in the area. CBS News reported the military is now reversing that denial outright. The reversal came after outside investigations, including reporting cited by The Guardian and analysis from the advocacy group Avaaz cited by Al Jazeera, built a case that Israeli tanks were present and responsible.

What happened to Hind Rajab is not in serious dispute anymore. She was fleeing an Israeli offensive into Gaza City with her aunt, uncle and four cousins in a black Kia Picanto. Gunfire hit the car, killing six of the seven occupants instantly. Her 15-year-old cousin, Layan Hamada, got a call through to Red Crescent dispatchers describing an approaching tank before the line went silent, per CBS News. Hind, wounded and alone with her dead relatives, stayed on the phone for roughly three hours, telling operators she was scared and thirsty, according to CBS and PBS.

A Red Crescent ambulance was dispatched with, according to Al Jazeera, coordination clearance from COGAT, the Israeli military body that manages such movements. It was hit by what Al Jazeera described as a 120mm tank round, killing both medics. All nine bodies, the Hamada family and the two paramedics, were recovered 12 days later when Israeli forces withdrew from the area, PBS reported.

The IDF's official statement, quoted by the Epoch Times and CBS, cited "alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance" as the basis for opening a criminal investigation, to be conducted by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.

The military released decisions on five cases total, drawn from what it said were reviews of 150 incidents involving troop conduct in Gaza, according to PBS and CBC. Alongside Rajab's case, the IDF opened a criminal probe into the March 2025 killing of 15 Palestinian medics and a UN staffer in Rafah's Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, a case where the military initially claimed the vehicles were "advancing suspiciously" without lights before cellphone video contradicted that account, per CBS.

The IDF declined to open a criminal investigation into the April 2024 killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, finding "no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct," according to CBC. PBS reported the military's statement also did not address other high-profile incidents Israel had previously pledged to investigate, including the August 2025 strike on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists.

Critics on the right have raised specific concerns about Gaza reporting. The Daily Wire, in a separate opinion piece, argued that some NGO and UN claims against Israel, specifically a June UN report alleging a quadcopter sniper attack on a 10-day-old infant, rely on unnamed sources, unverified photos and no independent forensic analysis. That criticism applies to different, unrelated claims. It does not apply to the Rajab case. Here the IDF itself, not an NGO or the UN, is the one admitting its troops fired on the vehicle and the ambulance. This is Israel's own acknowledgment, not a contested third-party allegation.

Whether the investigation leads anywhere is a separate and open question. CBC reported that Israeli rights groups say criminal misconduct investigations into troops rarely lead to convictions, with "nearly zero indictments" served relative to the volume of complaints filed. A UN report from February, cited by The Guardian, described "a pervasive climate of impunity" in Israeli military justice regarding Palestinians in the occupied territories, though that characterization comes from a UN body that Israel and its allies have repeatedly accused of institutional bias against it.

Hind Rajab's grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the Associated Press the internal investigation is not enough. "An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable," she said. "We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children." Independent experts from the UN Human Rights Council have said the killing may amount to a war crime, and rights groups have filed complaints with the International Criminal Court, per the Epoch Times and PBS.

The story also became the subject of a 2025 docudrama, "The Voice of Hind Rajab," which premiered at the Venice Film Festival with Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix as executive producers, according to Breitbart. Director Kaouther Ben Hania used real Red Crescent recordings in the dramatization. Hind's mother, Wissam Hamada, told AFP she hoped the film would help end the war, calling the world's inaction "a huge betrayal."

The open question now is whether Israel's Military Police investigation produces an indictment, something that historically almost never happens in these cases, or whether it joins a long list of Gaza incidents reviewed and closed without consequence.