Israeli military police are to open a criminal case over the death of five-year-old Hind Rajab, the Palestinian girl whose killing and traumatic final moments in Gaza sparked outrage around the world.
The announcement came as Israeli attacks killed at least nine people in Gaza city on Wednesday, hours after six more died in a strike on a seafront cafe. Hamas said Israel was "deliberately undermining" a US push to accelerate the peace process in Gaza, where civilians remain under daily threat of Israeli attack.
Hind and six members of her family were killed when their car was fired on by Israeli forces in January 2024. Trapped in the vehicle in her last moments, her haunting phone call to paramedics became the subject of a film, The Voice of Hind Rajab.
The incident is one of 150 during the Gaza war to have been reviewed by Israeli military prosecutors, it was announced on Wednesday. Israel denies wider allegations of genocide or war crimes in Gaza, where more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war.
The ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump ended the worst of the onslaught last October, but Palestinians say more than 1,200 have been killed since then. Talks led by Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner this week brought no clear breakthrough on moving the process forward.
The latest Israeli attack in Gaza city on Wednesday killed nine people, whose “charred remains” were taken to hospital, and injured at least 15 others, Palestinian official media said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is running for re-election in October, has insisted that Israel should maintain the freedom to carry out attacks.
Announcing decisions in five cases on Wednesday, the Israeli prosecutors said the Hind Rajab incident and the killing of 15 Palestinians in an ambush in March 2025 would be subject to further criminal investigation.
Three other cases have been closed, including an Israeli strike that killed aid workers for the World Central Kitchen charity in April 2024. The other two involved staff from Doctors Without Borders being killed in Gaza.
In the Hind Rajab case, the Israeli army said it fired at the family car because it was travelling “contrary to an advance notice” issued by the military. Five people were killed instantly, while Hind and her 15-year-old cousin Layan initially survived.
The two girls called for help from the Palestinian Red Crescent, but both children – and two paramedics who had headed to the scene in an ambulance – were eventually found dead.
“According to the allegations raised, upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired towards it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it,” the Israeli army said.
The statement did not offer any explanation for how the girls had died, but the car was found riddled with bullet holes. Open-source investigators have alleged that more than 300 bullets were fired at the car.
Audio recordings of Hind’s calls for help spread widely online, turning the incident into a symbol of the conflict’s toll on civilians, particularly children. The Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania became the first Arab woman to receive three Oscar nominations for The Voice of Hind Rajab.
“Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the co-ordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident,” the Israeli army said.
In the second case under investigation, 15 Palestinians were killed in an attack on emergency vehicles in Tel Al Sultan, in Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave.
Israel at first claimed that the medics' vehicles did not have their emergency lights on. It changed that story after footage was recovered from one of the victims' phones.
After an initial investigation, the Israeli military blamed “poor night visibility” and said a field commander had been sacked – but claimed, without providing evidence, that six of the dead were affiliated with Hamas.
The Israeli army maintained that stance in its latest statement but said the gunfire directed at the emergency vehicles “raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct”, prompting a further investigation.
Israel has denied claims of a deliberate campaign to kill civilians. In the World Central Kitchen incident, in April 2024, seven people were killed by what the charity said was a “targeted attack” on a convoy. Israel at the time called it a “grave mistake”.
In Wednesday's statement, the Israeli military said “serious failures” had led troops to believe Hamas operatives were in the convoy. However, it said commanders had acted on “suspicious indicators” and that their actions could not be considered criminal.
