The Israeli military has acknowledged that its troops fired on a car carrying a Palestinian family in Gaza City in January 2024, resulting in the death of five-year-old Hind Rajab and other family members. The admission came more than two years after the incident, which sparked international condemnation and calls for an independent probe.
Rajab’s grandmother, who also bears the same name, expressed deep skepticism regarding the military’s announcement that it had launched a criminal investigation into the shooting. She said the inquiry was more an effort to “justify” the killing than a genuine attempt to seek accountability. “For us, this is not an admission but rather an attempt by the Israeli army to justify to the world how it committed the crime,” she stated.
The girl’s death followed a desperate phone call she made on January 29, 2024, to the Palestinian Red Crescent, pleading for assistance while the family’s car was under fire amid an Israeli military advance. Her body was later recovered in a bullet-riddled vehicle along with six other family members and two Red Crescent rescuers who had gone to retrieve them. Audio recordings of the emergency call were later featured in the Oscar-nominated film *The Voice of Hind Rajab*.
Following years of denial that soldiers were present during the incident, the Israeli military’s Wednesday statement marked a shift, acknowledging responsibility and ordering a criminal probe by military police. The inquiry reportedly follows a review citing “alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance.”
Israel’s foreign ministry described the investigation as evidence that the country operates as a “law-abiding democracy.” However, Hind Rajab’s grandmother rejected this, asserting a profound lack of trust in Israeli justice. “We do not trust Israel’s justice system, we don’t trust them because they have committed numerous crimes,” she said, noting that many other incidents in Gaza remain undocumented.
The incident is set against a backdrop of a protracted and deadly conflict in Gaza. Since hostilities escalated in October 2023 after a Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,221 people, over 73,300 Palestinians have been reported killed in Israeli military operations, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is affiliated with Hamas. Despite a ceasefire in place since October, Israel maintains control of more than 60 percent of Gaza’s territory and continues military operations citing the targeting of militants.
On the same day it admitted responsibility for the 2024 car shooting, the Israeli military released findings from reviews of four other notable incidents. It announced a criminal investigation into the killing of 15 Palestinian doctors and humanitarian workers in 2025 but declined to open probes into incidents involving the deaths of employees from the World Central Kitchen and Médecins Sans Frontières.
From her home in Gaza City, Hind Rajab’s grandmother called on the international community to bear witness to what she described as “daily crimes” against Palestinians. She urged governments to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza amid ongoing violence and suffering.