Israel’s Hind Rajab ‘investigation’ is a sham

Israel finally admits firing on her car. But don’t be fooled

933 days after five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab was killed alongside four of her cousins – all children – and their parents, Israel has finally admitted that its troops fired on the car carrying them.

This massacre goes beyond Hind and her family. Israel killed two paramedics sent to try to save her, after their ambulance’s journey had been coordinated with the Israeli authorities.

It comes after denial after denial, lie after lie, and fits a familiar pattern when Israel faces allegations over a particularly high-profile atrocity: deny, deflect, distort and sow doubt – and then, sometimes long after public attention has moved on, acknowledge facts that demolish the original story.

Most of the Western media plays along, refusing to assign responsibility even when overwhelming evidence warrants it. They instead encourage readers and viewers to retreat into a comforting shrug: who can possibly know what is real amid the fog of war?

So first let’s go through the truth and Israel’s lies – and then put it in the wider context of Israel’s record of relentless deception, and the culture of impunity which has enabled Israel’s Western-facilitated genocide against the Palestinian people.

What Israel has now admitted

On 19 August, the Israeli army announced that it had completed reviews of a number of what it calls “exceptional operational incidents” in Gaza.

It ordered Military Police criminal investigations into the killing of Hind Rajab and her family, and into the killing of 15 Palestinians – including emergency workers and a UN employee – in Tel al-Sultan in March 2025.

At the same time, it decided not to open a criminal investigation into the Israeli strikes which killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in April 2024. I’ll come back to that.

The Israeli military has stated that these reviews are conducted as part of its obligations under international law. Given the state’s wanton violations of international law, you might wonder about their motives for saying this.

It’s straightforward. In November 2024 the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity. Under the ICC’s principle of complementarity, the Court is supposed to act where states with jurisdiction are unwilling or unable genuinely to investigate or prosecute the same conduct.

But simply announcing an investigation does not, by itself, block the ICC: the central question is whether domestic proceedings are genuine.

There is therefore an obvious legal and political incentive for Israel to point to investigations of a handful of high-profile cases as evidence that international intervention is unnecessary.

The record tells us there will be no meaningful accountability for Israel’s murder of Hind Rajab and her family.

What happened to Hind Rajab

On 29 January 2024, following Israeli evacuation orders – in practice, another episode of forced displacement – Hind’s aunt and uncle tried to flee Gaza City with Hind and her four cousins.

They were 15-year-old Layan Hamada, 13-year-old Raghad Hamada, 11-year-old Mohammed Hamada and seven-year-old Sara Hamada.

Israeli troops opened fire on their car. Five of its occupants were killed, leaving only Hind and Layan alive.

Layan called the Palestine Red Crescent. She said a tank was approaching and that her family had been killed. Gunfire can then be heard on the recording, followed by Layan screaming. The line went dead.

Hind was now the only survivor.

The Red Crescent re-established contact with her and spent around three and a half hours on the phone to a terrified five-year-old girl, wounded and trapped inside a car with the bodies of her family. As the day wore on, she spoke of her fear of the dark.

Eventually, an ambulance was dispatched after its movement had been coordinated with the Israeli authorities. The Red Crescent sent two paramedics: Yusuf al-Zeino, 35, and Ahmed al-Madhoun, 37.

As the ambulance reached the area, it was struck and both men were killed. Subsequent examinations of the wreckage found damage consistent with a tank round.

On 10 February, after Israeli forces withdrew from the area, the bodies were finally recovered. The family car was riddled with bullets. The ambulance lay burned out nearby.

The denial unravelled

Now consider what the Israeli authorities said after these killings.

Initially, the IDF said it was “unfamiliar with the incident described” and was “still looking into it”.

As the case attracted far more international attention than the vast majority of Palestinians killed in Gaza, the Israeli army issued a categorical denial on 24 February.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit told the Times of Israel that its preliminary investigation found IDF troops “were not present near the vehicle or within firing range”.

Because Israeli forces supposedly were not there, it also claimed there had been no need for the ambulance to coordinate its movement with the IDF.

Both claims swiftly disintegrated.

Weeks later, an official from COGAT – the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories – told the Washington Post that COGAT had “coordinated everything … including the ambulance that wanted to go and find Hind”, while saying he did not know the specifics.

COGAT then failed to clarify the contradicting accounts when repeatedly asked, while the IDF continued to deny that coordination had taken place.

Then on 16 April, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the Israelis had told Washington that IDF units had, in fact, been in the area – while maintaining they had no knowledge of or involvement in the attack.

So the story had moved from: our troops weren’t there to our troops were there, but they weren’t involved.

Yet the IDF subsequently continued publicly standing by its original denial.

By October 2025, another explanation had emerged: the Israeli government argued that the hundreds of bullet impacts on the car were the product of a firefight between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.

Then, on 6 April 2026, a website called FactSignal promoted the possibility that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad had been fighting in the area, suggesting that the family might have been struck in crossfire or by Palestinian mortar or small-arms fire.

This was not simply some random pro-Israel website. At the bottom of the page is this disclosure:

“This material is distributed by Clock Tower X LLC on behalf of the State of Israel.”

In other words, this material formed part of a propaganda operation conducted on behalf of the Israeli state.

That story has now been abandoned too.

Israel’s latest account accepts that its troops did fire on the family car, but says it was travelling contrary to an evacuation route previously announced to residents.

Just look at the progression:

Israeli troops were not there.

Then: Israeli troops were there, but did not attack the car.

Then: perhaps the damage came from crossfire involving Palestinian fighters.

Now: Israeli troops did fire on the car.

The evidence was already there

Here is why the original Israeli denial should never have been treated so credulously.

During Layan’s final conversation with the Red Crescent, she told the dispatcher:

“They are shooting at us. The tank is next to us.”

The only military operating tanks in Gaza was Israel.

After Layan was killed, Hind herself repeatedly told Red Crescent dispatchers that tanks were around the car and moving closer.

To dismiss those accounts required dismissing what two terrified children reported about the murder of their family - which they had witnessed, and only temporarily survived.

Hind’s mother, Wissam, also said she witnessed fire directed at the vehicle:

“We saw them when they fired at the car but we didn’t believe they had targeted them, or we didn’t want to believe it.”

There were important investigations by two Western media organisations. But they not only lacked prominence, they remained isolated pieces of reporting rather than changing the wider way the story was framed - and these stories were largely ignored by other media outlets. This is typical of the reporting of the genocide.

The Washington Post had the audio independently analysed. Audio specialists identified at least 62 gunshots in six seconds, in two bursts. An acoustic specialist found that the rate of fire was faster than the sort of rifle Hamas fighters used, and was more consistent with “weapons commonly issued to Israeli forces”.

Then there was the satellite evidence.

The team at Planet Labs supplied the evidence, and a specialist reviewed it on on behalf of the Washington Post. They found at least four Israeli armoured vehicles around 300 metres further along the road from the family car at 3.31pm on 29 January, roughly an hour after Layan’s final call.

More than a dozen additional Israeli armoured vehicles were visible within a quarter of a mile.

Sky News conducted its own analysis and found at least 15 Israeli military vehicles in the area, with the closest roughly 300 metres from the car.

And note this. On 10 February, the IDF itself published a press release stating that “over the last two weeks” its troops had been conducting raids in Shati and Tel al-Hawa – the neighbourhood where Hind and her family were killed.

That press release was later deleted.

Sky News also geolocated footage released by the IDF to show three Israeli units operating less than 650 metres from the car.

The evidence contradicted the categorical Israeli claim that its forces were nowhere close enough to have fired on the family.

A weapons expert from intelligence agency Janes consulted by the Washington Post examined images of the car and concluded that its bullet holes were probably produced by a 7.62-calibre machine gun. They noted that Merkava tanks, Namer armoured personnel carriers and Puma engineering vehicles used by Israel all carry weapons of that calibre.

Then there is Forensic Architecture, the research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London. Its reconstruction identified 335 projectile impacts on the car and concluded, using the bullet trajectories and acoustic evidence, that the firing came from close range. Its analysis found that whoever was firing would likely have been aware that children were inside.

Remember: this happened in broad daylight.

The ambulance – and what the UN found

The ambulance presents another devastating contradiction.

The IDF had argued that the Red Crescent could not have needed Israeli permission to approach Hind because Israeli troops were supposedly absent. But we know that is a lie. Israeli troops were present.

The Washington Post reviewed the COGAT route map transmitted to the Palestinian health liaison, who said permission had been granted. A COGAT official independently confirmed that the ambulance had been coordinated.

The Red Crescent recordings also capture Wissam asking whether access had been coordinated and was safe. The dispatcher confirms that it had, saying they had spent around three hours arranging it.

The ambulance was subsequently found burned out around 50 metres from the family car. Munitions experts who reviewed the damage found it consistent with a large direct-fire projectile of approximately the size of a tank round.

Then came the international investigations.

In October 2024, the UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry found that the IDF’s 162nd Division had been operating in the area and attributed the deaths of the seven family members and the shelling of the ambulance to Israeli forces. It concluded that the killings amounted to the war crimes of “wilful killing” and “attacking a civilian object”.

In June 2026, the Commission went further. It found that the 401st Brigade of the 162nd Division deliberately fired on the car from close range in the full knowledge that children were inside. They held the same brigade responsible for the shelling of the ambulance.

The commander of the 401st Armoured Brigade at the time was Colonel Beni Aharon. Above him in the chain of command, the 162nd Division was commanded by Brigadier General Itzik Cohen.

This pattern did not begin with Hind Rajab

There are many examples of Israeli authorities denying responsibility for crimes, only for the original account to collapse later.

During Israel’s 2008-09 assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, Israel initially denied using white phosphorus. It later acknowledged its use.

In May 2022, Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead in Jenin. Senior Israeli officials initially suggested Palestinian gunmen were responsible. Months later, the IDF acknowledged there was a “high possibility” that she had been accidentally hit by Israeli gunfire.

In August of that year, five Palestinian boys were killed beside a cemetery in Gaza. Israeli officials initially attributed their deaths to a failed Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. An Israeli military investigation subsequently concluded that an Israeli air strike had killed them.

You can see the recurring pattern: an immediate dismissal of responsibility, evidence accumulating against it, and - as attention has moved on - a later admission that moves much closer to what witnesses and independent investigators had said from the beginning.

What does an Israeli investigation actually mean?

Which brings us back to the newly announced Israeli investigation into Hind’s killing – and the separate investigation into the killing of 15 Palestinians in Tel al-Sultan.

The latter case is itself indicative.

Israeli troops opened fire on emergency vehicles in March 2025. The IDF initially claimed that the vehicles had been “advancing suspiciously” in darkness without headlights or emergency lights.

Video subsequently recovered from the phone of one of the dead paramedics showed the emergency vehicles moving slowly, visibly marked, with their emergency lights flashing.

Israel then withdrew key elements of its original account.

So what reason is there to believe that these newly announced investigations will produce accountability?

According to Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, 219 Palestinian fatalities in the occupied West Bank were brought to the military’s attention between 2018 and 2022.

Only one of those 219 fatalities resulted in a prosecution – a rate of 0.4%.

As Yesh Din concluded:

“The data shows that Israel is unwilling to conduct genuine investigation and prosecution procedures in cases of offenses committed by soldiers.”

And consider what that solitary prosecution actually amounted to.

In March 2019, an Israeli soldier shot dead 23-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Jamal Manasrah near Bethlehem. Earlier, the same soldier had opened fire on Alaa Ghiyada after falsely accusing him of throwing stones. Ghiyada was seriously wounded. Manasrah was killed when he stopped to help him..

The soldier was ultimately convicted of the military-law equivalent of negligent homicide

His punishment?

Three months of unpaid military service, probation and demotion to private. No imprisonment.

He was not prosecuted at all for shooting and seriously wounding Ghiyada.

What about Israel’s record during its genocide in Gaza?

A 2025 investigation by Action on Armed Violence identified 52 publicly reported cases in which the Israeli military said it had conducted or would conduct an investigation into alleged wrongdoing between October 2023 and June 2025.

Of those 52 cases, 46 – 88% – had either been closed with no finding of fault or remained ‘unresolved’ with no reported outcome.

Among the ‘unresolved’ cases was the killing of at least 112 Palestinians waiting for flour in Gaza City in February 2024.

In AOAV’s 52-case sample, just one case had resulted in a prison sentence.

That involved a reservist at the Sde Teiman detention centre who repeatedly attacked bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees. He was sentenced to seven months in prison and demoted.

Against the scale of death and destruction in Gaza, the fact that this was the sole custodial sentence identified in that sample is extraordinary.

And the contrast with trivial disciplinary offences is striking.

In March 2024, two Israeli soldiers were sentenced to 20 days in a military prison - because they warmed up hot dogs in a military kitchen on Shabbat.

In April 2026, four Border Police officers were sentenced to two weeks in a military prison - because they barbecued on a base, “harming religion and Judaism”.

In May 2026, an Israeli soldier was sentenced to 30 days in military prison for wearing an unauthorised Velcro patch bearing the word “Messiah” on his uniform.

These are the sorts of offences Israeli soldiers are imprisoned for - rather than the mass slaughter of civilians.

Then there is World Central Kitchen

The decision over the World Central Kitchen killings is revealing for another reason.

Seven aid workers were killed on 1 April 2024. They did not die in a single strike.

An Israeli drone first hit one WCK vehicle. Two people survived and made it into a second car. Around two minutes later, that vehicle was attacked too. Again, two people survived long enough to reach the third vehicle.

Then Israel struck that one as well.

All seven were killed.

And consider what Israeli forces knew while this was happening.

The WCK mission had been extensively coordinated in advance with the Israeli authorities: the organisation had given them detailed information about the operation, its vehicles, its personnel and the route they intended to take.

There had been armed locally contracted security personnel associated with the convoy, and a man had earlier been seen firing into the air. But by the time the WCK vehicles left the warehouse, those suspected gunmen were travelling in a different direction.

Their vehicle went north. The three WCK cars headed west, towards the coast.

This was not something Israeli surveillance had lost sight of. A UAV followed the security vehicle north and continued watching the suspected gunmen.

Nevertheless, an Israeli operator claimed that a WCK driver appeared to be putting a gun into one of the aid organisation’s vehicles. This was false – something Israel’s own investigation later acknowledged.

The WCK cars were attacked anyway.

An independent Australian government review later found that the attacks on the second and third vehicles breached the IDF’s own Standard Operating Procedures and Rules of Engagement. The strikes also took place within an area Israel had designated a “humanitarian fire control zone”.

Why would Israel deliberately attack the World Central Kitchen?

Consider this. A senior brigade-level officer involved in the operation had previously signed a letter calling for restrictions on aid entering Gaza.

The consequences extended far beyond the seven people killed. Humanitarian organisations suspended operations in Gaza in the aftermath.

Yet Israel has now decided that the conduct of those responsible does not even raise a “reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct”.

There won’t even be a sham investigation.

World Central Kitchen has condemned that decision.

This is what impunity looks like

The Israeli military lied and lied about the killing of Hind Rajab and her family.

This has been their modus operandi both before and during the genocide.

They are now using the case for cynical propaganda ends to undermine justice. There will be no accountability for those who perpetrated this crime.

The UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry has correctly concluded that the 401st Brigade deliberately targeted the family car while knowing that children were inside.

These murders cannot be separated from the wider destruction of Palestinian childhood in Gaza.

The same UN Commission reported in June that more than 20,000 Palestinian children had been killed between October 2023 and October 2025. It concluded that “Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces”, and that this formed a key part of the evidence establishing genocidal intent.

These are the most heinous of crimes - facilitated by Western governments and media outlets. It is our responsibility to fight for truth - and justice.