The Israeli army has ordered a Hind Rajab criminal investigation into the killing of the six-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza City, following an internationally condemned incident in January 2024 in which she was left alone in a vehicle after several family members were killed under suspected Israeli fire.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division would carry out the probe. The decision came, the IDF said, ‘following a review of the findings’ and ‘due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance’.
What happened to Hind Rajab
Hind was one of seven family members travelling in a vehicle that came under suspected Israeli fire in Gaza City in January 2024. Several relatives were killed in the attack. Hind survived initially and was recorded in a desperate phone call to paramedics, a recording that was broadcast around the world and drew widespread international condemnation.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society dispatched an ambulance to reach her. Her body was recovered days later alongside her remaining relatives and two paramedics who had attempted to save her. She was six years old.
The phone call, in which Hind could be heard pleading for help while surrounded by the bodies of family members, became one of the most widely reported individual cases of civilian death during the conflict in Gaza.
Mother rejects military-led Hind Rajab criminal investigation
The IDF’s announcement has already drawn a direct response from Hind’s family. In a statement on Thursday, Hind’s mother, Wesam Hamada, said: ‘I do not want a closed military investigation. I want an independent, transparent investigation and genuine accountability for everyone responsible.’
Hamada’s statement, reported by TIME, makes clear that the family does not regard an internal military inquiry as sufficient. Her demand for independent oversight and accountability for all those responsible goes beyond the scope of what the IDF has announced.
The IDF framed the decision to open a criminal investigation specifically around alleged coordination failures relating to the ambulance’s movement, rather than addressing broader questions about the original attack on the vehicle in which Hind and her family were travelling.
Condemnation and context
The killing drew condemnation from governments and human rights bodies across the world. The recorded phone call, in which Hind spoke directly to paramedics before contact was lost, drew particular attention to the circumstances in which she died.
The IDF statement did not specify a timeline for the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division’s inquiry or indicate when findings might be published. The Hind Rajab criminal investigation now passes to that division, with the IDF citing the ambulance coordination failures as the basis for initiating the process.
Wesam Hamada’s public rejection of a closed military process sets up a direct tension between the family’s demands and the mechanism the IDF has chosen. Her call for transparency and independent accountability reflects concerns raised by human rights groups about the capacity of military self-investigation to deliver impartial conclusions in cases involving civilian deaths in Gaza.
The investigation was announced by the IDF without further detail on which individuals or units are under scrutiny, or what evidence the earlier internal review examined before the decision to escalate to a criminal inquiry was taken.
