<\/p>\n
The Israeli military acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that it opened fire on the vehicle carrying 5-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza and said it had opened a criminal investigation into the killing.<\/p>\n
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had previously denied involvement in the January 2024 killing, saying months later that a preliminary investigation found its forces were \u201cnot present near the vehicle or within firing range\u201d of the vehicle.<\/p>\n
The case is one of two-high profile incidents into which the military has opened criminal investigations. But the military said that it would not probe three other attacks from the early months of the war that killed aid workers.<\/p>\n
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour slammed Israel\u2019s past investigations as \u201cnot independent and not credible,\u201d telling CNN\u2019s Jim Sciutto that he doesn\u2019t believe this investigation will be any different. A credible investigation, he said, would result in the arrest of those responsible for Rajab\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n
Rajab was one of seven family members traveling in a vehicle in northern Gaza on when they came under Israeli fire. Rajab survived the initial fire and pleaded on the phone for hours<\/a> with Palestinian paramedics to come rescue her. Afterwards, an ambulance dispatched to save her also came under fire.<\/p>\n Twelve days later, Rajab\u2019s body was found in a car riddled with bullets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe findings of the examination indicate that IDF troops fired at a vehicle that was approaching them,\u201d the IDF said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing review of the findings an due to apparent 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hind Rajab Foundation said in a statement that investigations by Israeli forces \u201coverwhelmingly end without meaningful examination, prosecution, or punishment. In the small number of cases in which soldiers have been convicted of crimes, the punishments imposed have often been exceptionally lenient or administrative in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Recordings of Rajab\u2019s call with paramedics gained international attention, driving calls for accountability for her killing and that of thousands of other children in Gaza. A film about the incident, \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d was nominated for an Oscar in 2026.<\/p>\n The investigation into Hind Rajab\u2019s death is part of the IDF\u2019s first comprehensive report on alleged war crimes since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.<\/p>\n The IDF General Staff\u2019s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism concluded investigating 150 incidents, which were transferred to the military\u2019s top lawyer to decide on opening criminal investigations. Of the 150 inquiries, five decisions were published on Wednesday, while the others await a decision from the military advocate-general.<\/p>\n The IDF also announced it has launched a criminal investigation into the March 2025 killing<\/a> of 15 paramedics and first responders who were traveling in ambulances and other emergency response vehicles.<\/p>\n The IDF initially claimed the vehicles were driving suspiciously without headlights or emergency signals, which was later directly contradicted by video of the convoy of vehicles traveling with flashing lights. The group were buried in a mass grave along with their emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n The Israeli military subsequently acknowledged \u201cprofessional failures\u201d<\/a> in the incident and insisted there had been \u201cno ethical gaps.\u201d But in its statement on Wednesday, the IDF said \u201cthe firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n In three other incidents, the military determined there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct to justify opening a criminal investigation: the April 2024 killing<\/a> of the seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) humanitarian aid workers in Deir El-Balah, a February 2024 strike on a Doctors Without Borders \/ M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) shelter in Khan Younis that killed two employees, and a November 2023 strike on an MSF convoy which killed two additional employees.<\/p>\n In the attack that killed the WCK employees, the IDF said it found \u201cserious failures\u201d in the process that mistakenly led the military to believe the humanitarian convoy was taken over by a group of Hamas fighters. But the military advocate-general did not find \u201creasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct,\u201d the IDF said.<\/p>\n In a statement, WCK blasted the decision not to open a criminal investigation, calling it \u201cinconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time of the lethal attacks, the IDF knew that our team in Gaza was unarmed and posing a threat to nobody. It had full visual clarity on our clearly marked humanitarian vehicles during the extended, multiple airstrikes. It knew our team\u2019s movements, identities and activities in advance.<\/p>\n Australia too, expressed outrage at the Israeli decision not to pursue criminal proceedings for those behind the attack that killed WCK employees, including Australian national Zomi Frankcom<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cZomi represented the best of Australia. Her courage deserves to be celebrated. Her family deserves justice,\u201d Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Thursday. \u201cThis decision falls far short of the accountability we expect.\u201d<\/p>\n Wong said she would call in the Israeli ambassador to Australia, and has told Australia\u2019s envoy to Israel to convey Canberra\u2019s views to the Israeli government directly. The Australian foreign minister said her government would \u201cnot step pressing Israel for justice for Zomi and her colleagues<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The military investigation conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame for the IDF\u2019s illegal conduct,\u201d WCK said.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Israeli military acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that it opened fire on the vehicle carrying 5-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza and said it had opened a criminal investigation into the killing. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had previously denied involvement in the January 2024 killing, saying months later that a preliminary investigation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[4843,4839,4841,4842,3398,4840,4844,2917,1414,716,3986,4845,1597],"class_list":["post-2965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-5yearold","tag-admits","tag-car","tag-carrying","tag-criminal","tag-firing","tag-hind","tag-israeli","tag-military","tag-opens","tag-probe","tag-rajab","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}