Israeli military launches probes into killings by troops
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Israel's military on Wednesday announced its first criminal investigations into troop conduct in Gaza, focusing on the killings of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family and of 15 Palestinian paramedics.
The military said it would not probe three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders. It said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza and made decisions on the five cases. Chef Jose Andres, founder of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, condemned the decision on X as "wrong and painful."
The investigations involve killings that drew a heavy international outcry. Hind was trapped in a vehicle with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she too was killed in February 2024. After the shooting of the 15 medics in March 2025, troops bulldozed their bodies into a mass grave.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, including tens of thousands of women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry. Rights groups and U.N. commissions have said the campaign amounts to genocide and that Israeli forces have committed a litany of war crimes, including indiscriminate use of force and deliberate killings of civilians.
Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it is targeting Hamas after its October 2023 attack on southern Israel. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded strip.
Israeli officials contend the country's justice system can address any violations by its troops, but rights groups say soldiers are almost never held accountable.
Wednesday's statement did not mention many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate, such as its strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press and other news organizations.
5-year-old was last alive in stranded car
Hind's grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation into her killing is not enough.
"An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable," she said. "We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children."
The military in Wednesday's statement admitted to firing at the car carrying the 5-year-old, four of her cousins and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.
As gunfire sprayed around them, the girl's cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling staff there her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan's screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.
Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Hind and stayed on the line with her until contact was lost. Hind, her five relatives and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.
The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab foundation, told Al-Jazeera he considered the military investigations a "charade meant to whitewash the culprits instead of convicting them."
The Palestinian Red Crescent also insists on an international investigation, according to Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the organization in Gaza. "Israeli measures are not enough," he told the AP.
A movie docudrama about Hind's death, "The Voice of Hind Rajab," won international awards and was nominated for an Oscar.
15 medics trying to reach casualties
In the killing of the paramedics, Israeli troops fired on an ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, then fired on other emergency vehicles that came looking for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings. Fifteen medics and emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Gaza's Civil Defense were killed.
Troops then bulldozed over the bodies and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.