Israeli military admits for first time to firing on car carrying 5-year-old Hind Rajab as it opens criminal probe

IDF Opens Criminal Probe Into Killing of 5-Year-Old Hind Rajab After Months of Denial

Goldlaner.com – For the first time since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, the Israel Defense Forces has published a comprehensive accounting of alleged war crimes, and the most emotionally charged finding in that report concerns a toddler. On Wednesday, the military confirmed that its soldiers opened fire on the vehicle in which 5-year-old Hind Rajab was riding in northern Gaza in January 2024 — a claim it had previously and explicitly rejected.

The admission marks a sharp reversal. Months after the killing, the IDF had told the public that a preliminary review concluded its forces were “not present near the vehicle or within firing range.” Now, after a fuller examination, the military says the opposite: that troops did shoot at the approaching car, and that coordination failures involving a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance contributed to the tragedy.

What the Military Says Happened

In a formal statement, the IDF explained that examination findings showed soldiers fired at a vehicle moving toward them. The statement added that, following review of those findings and what it described as “apparent failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance,” the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division would open a criminal inquiry into the incident.

“The findings of the examination indicate that IDF troops fired at a vehicle that was approaching them.”

The sequence of events, as previously documented by witnesses and recordings, is harrowing. Rajab was among seven family members traveling in a car when Israeli fire struck. She survived the initial volley and spent hours on a phone call with Palestinian paramedics, begging them to reach her. An ambulance was dispatched. That ambulance, too, came under fire. Twelve days after the shooting, Rajab’s body was recovered inside a car pocked with bullet holes.

Palestinian Reaction: Distrust of the Process

Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed the announcement as another exercise in theater. Speaking to CNN’s Jim Sciutto, he characterized Israel’s prior investigations as “not independent and not credible” and expressed skepticism that this probe would yield different results.

“A credible investigation, he said, would result in the arrest of those responsible for Rajab’s killing.”

The Hind Rajab Foundation, established in the child’s memory, issued its own statement warning that Israeli military inquiries “overwhelmingly end without meaningful examination, prosecution, or punishment.” The foundation noted that in the rare instances where soldiers have been convicted, sentences have tended to be “exceptionally lenient or administrative in nature.”

The Broader Report: 150 Incidents Reviewed

The Rajab probe is one thread in a much larger tapestry. The IDF General Staff’s Fact Finding and Assessment Mechanism completed reviews of 150 incidents and forwarded them to the military’s top lawyer — the advocate-general — for decisions on whether criminal cases should be opened. On Wednesday, five of those decisions were made public; the remainder await further deliberation.

One of the five published decisions concerns the March 2025 killing of 15 paramedics and first responders traveling in ambulances and other emergency vehicles. The IDF initially argued the convoy was driving “suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals. Video later surfaced showing the vehicles with flashing lights active, directly contradicting that account. The responders were buried in a mass grave alongside their wrecked vehicles. The military subsequently acknowledged “professional failures” while insisting there had been “no ethical gaps.” Wednesday’s statement, however, conceded that “the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct,” prompting a second criminal investigation.

Three Incidents Cleared

In contrast, the military determined that no reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct existed in three other high-profile cases:

The April 2024 killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) humanitarian aid workers in Deir El-Balah; a February 2024 strike on a Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) shelter in Khan Younis that killed two employees; and a November 2023 strike on an MSF convoy that killed two additional employees.

Regarding the WCK attack, the IDF said it found “serious failures” in the process that led the military to mistakenly believe the humanitarian convoy had been seized by Hamas fighters. Nevertheless, the advocate-general concluded there was no basis for a criminal case. WCK responded with a statement condemning the decision not to open a criminal investigation.

Why the Rajab Case Resonates

Recordings of Hind Rajab’s desperate phone calls with paramedics circulated widely across social media and international news outlets, galvanizing public demands for accountability not only for her death but for the thousands of other children killed in Gaza since October 2023. The emotional weight of those recordings helped propel a documentary film, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” to an Oscar nomination in 2026, ensuring that the child’s final hours remain in global consciousness.

The timing of the announcement — embedded within the IDF’s first systematic post-war review — underscores a broader question: whether institutional self-inquiry, conducted by the same military that carried out the operations, can produce outcomes that victims’ families and international observers will regard as genuine justice, or whether the pattern of leniency and closure will continue.