LAST UPDATE | 19 Aug

THE ISRAELI MILITARY has announced an investigation into the killing of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl whose death sparked international outrage and featured in a recent film named after her.

Israel’s military has also admitted its troops fired on a car carrying the youngster at the time of the incident 2024, which drew international outrage.

Hind’s body was found in a car riddled with bullets in the Gaza Strip in 2024.

She had been speaking to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society by phone for hours while surrounded by the bodies of her uncle and cousins on 29 January that year.

Israel denied killing Hind and her six family members and said its forces were not in the area at the time, a claim that was refuted by a number of media outlets that analysed satellite images.

A Red Crescent Ambulance had attempted to navigate the destroyed streets and Israeli soldiers in Gaza City. It had been cleared by the Israeli army to drive to the car Hind was hiding in, but was later discovered completely destroyed not far away.

The two medics, Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, were also killed.

Hind’s body and those of the medics were found almost two weeks later, when her family was able to get to the area after an Israeli withdrawal.

The agonising wait for the ambulance to be given clearance and the conversations Red Crescent workers had with Hind in the meantime formed the basis of a film called The Voice of Hind Rajab, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.

The film, directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, used real audio of Hind speaking to the aid workers by phone.

A still from the film The Voice of Hind Rajab Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

She can be heard pleading for the ambulance to come and get her while telling the Red Crescent workers she is scared.

“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 Israeli military said today.

Hind’s killing became a focal point for people around the world protesting Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which came after the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. Recreations of the car in which she was found, featuring 335 bullet holes, appeared in a number of cities around the world.

Artist Emmalene Blake puts the finishing touches to a mural of Hind Rajab outside Dalymount Park in Dublin Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The Israeli military also announced on Wednesday that criminal investigations would not be launched into three other incidents, involving the killing of seven employees from World Central Kitchen and four from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), both of which drew international scrutiny.

The founder of World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres, said on X that the decision was “wrong and is painful for all of us. There was no excuse for their attacks on our team.”

The US-based charity called the decision “inconsistent with the full truth and deeply offensive”, demanding “an independent commission to investigate the airstrikes because the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own conduct”.

The military said it had ordered a criminal probe into the killing of 15 Palestinian medics and humanitarian personnel in southern Gaza in March 2025, in another incident that sparked widespread outrage.

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, 2025 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.

The military said three shooting incidents occurred on that day, with fire directed at rescue vehicles including a fire truck, ambulances and a UN vehicle during an ambush against Hamas operatives.

It said 15 Palestinians were killed including medics, claiming “six of those killed were identified as belonging to Hamas”.

Troops then decided to “crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh”, it said.

Today, in Gaza City, an Israeli strike on the municipal police headquarters killed seven people and wounded another 22, adding to the death toll of more than one thousand since a nominal ceasefire agreement was reached in October last year.

This week, Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben Gvir said:

“I think targeted eliminations should be carried out in Gaza every night. Take out 30 or 40.

“Not only those who endanger you right now. These are people who shouldn’t be alive,” he said.

“I’m paying them a compliment by calling them humans.”