Israel Admits Troops Fired on Hind Rajab Car, Orders Criminal Probe 19 Months Later
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
Israel Admits Troops Fired on Hind Rajab Car, Orders Criminal Probe 19 Months Later
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 20
Summary
The Israeli military said its troops opened fire on the car carrying 5-year-old Hind Rajab and six relatives in Gaza in January 2024, and it has ordered a criminal investigation.
The admission reverses repeated denials that Israeli forces were in the area after media and other investigations found evidence pointing to nearby Israeli tanks.
Hind died after a three-hour phone call to the Palestinian Red Crescent pleading for rescue as her family fled an Israeli offensive into Gaza City; all seven occupants were killed and their bodies were recovered 12 days later.
The case became one of the war's most prominent civilian killings, but criminal probes of Israeli troops rarely end in convictions; a February UN report cited a pervasive climate of impunity.
The announcement came with Israeli reviews of five high-profile Gaza incidents, against a wider backdrop of UN accusations that Israel's conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide.