The Israeli military has confirmed for the first time that it fired on a car carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and her family.
It also announced that it has launched an investigation into her killing in a statement on Wednesday.
A separate probe will investigate the killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics in Gaza in May 2025, but the military said it would not launch an inquiry into three other high-profile attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders.
The military said it had completed a review of over 150 incidents involving Israeli troops in Gaza and had decided on five cases, including that of Hind and her family.
It did not mention the Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Maryam Abu Daqqa, a photojournalist for the Independent’s partner site Independent Arabia.
Hind was killed alongside her relatives in February 2024 as they tried to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli offensive. Israeli troops fired on a car that was carrying Hind, her aunt and uncle and four of her cousins including 15-year-old Layan Hamada.
Layan called the Palestinian Red Crescent and told them a tank was approaching and that her family had been killed. In the recording, which was released in the aftermath of the incident, more gunshots were heard and her screaming stopped.
Hind remained in the car as the sole survivor and stayed in touch with the Red Crescent as they tried to liaise with the Israeli military to rescue her, but contact was lost.
She was found dead alongside her family 12 days later.
“The findings of the examination indicate that IDF troops fired at a vehicle that was approaching them,” read a statement by the Israeli military.
“Following review of the findings and due to apparent failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.”
The 15 paramedics were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on their vehicles in the southern city of Rafah.
Troops shot at an ambulance that was driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive, then fired on several other emergency vehicles that went out to look for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings.
Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave.
UN and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.
The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals.
However, it backtracked from that account after the footage emerged, showing the Red Crescent and Civil Defence teams driving slowly with their emergency vehicle lights flashing and logos visible.
“We are not obligated to prove the truth because it is already proven to the whole world,” Eid Azizi, a Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson, said in a phone call.
“We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed the international humanitarian law.”
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