The Israeli military has admitted that its forces fired on a vehicle carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in Gaza in January 2024.
The military made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday after chronically denying that its forces were even present in the area when the incident occurred.
Hind was killed after the vehicle carrying her family came under intense fire as they attempted to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli military advance in northern Gaza during the Israeli regime’s war of genocide on the coastal sliver that had begun in October 2023.
She later became the focus of international attention after making a desperate, hours-long emergency call to the Palestinian Red Crescent on January 29, 2024.
Her body was recovered days later inside the bullet-riddled vehicle alongside six relatives. Two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, who had been dispatched to rescue her were also killed.
In the Wednesday statement, the Israeli military claimed the forces had fired on the vehicle “that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advance notice” issued to residents in the area.
“As a result of the fire, five of the vehicle’s passengers were killed, and two survived: Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada,” it said.
The statement went on to describe a passive account of the subsequent aggression that targeted the ambulance that had reached the location to rescue those targeted.
“Upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired toward it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it,” it added.
Hind’s killing generated international outrage and calls for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.
Recordings of her emergency call were later incorporated into the Oscar-nominated film “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” bringing renewed international attention to the case.
Hind Rajab Foundation rejects Israeli ‘investigation’
The Hind Rajab Foundation, a Brussels-based legal organization pursuing cases concerning Israeli violations in Gaza, rejected the Israeli military’s claim that it would “investigate” the incident.
The organization said it had “no confidence” in such investigation.
“These reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice,” the foundation said, arguing that Israeli internal investigations are “fundamentally flawed and cannot be regarded as credible mechanisms of accountability.”
