Israel's military launched its first criminal investigations into the conduct of its forces during the Gaza war Wednesday, including probes into the killings of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family and 15 Palestinian paramedics.
The military said it would not launch criminal investigations into three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders. Its statement said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza and made decisions on the five cases.
The military statement did not mention the many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate throughout the war, such as the Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press and other news organizations.
Both the killing of Rajab and her family, trapped in a vehicle and pleading for help by phone in February 2024, and the killing of 15 medics in May 2025 drew international outcry. Independent experts from the U.N. Human Rights Council have said Rajab’s killing might constitute a war crime. Rights groups have filed war crimes complaints to the International Criminal Court and requests to indict soldiers they identified as involved in the killing.
Rajab’s grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation is not enough, and called for an international probe into the killing of her granddaughter and all of the hundreds of children killed in Gaza during the war.
"An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable,” she said. "We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”
The military's statement comes nearly three years after its genocidal war began. Israeli strikes continue in Gaza despite a fragile cease-fire. Israel recently carried out a drone strike on a cafe in Gaza, killing at least six Palestinians, including a child.
The military admitted to firing at the family car carrying Rajab, four of her cousins and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.
As gunfire sprayed around them, Rajab's cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling them that a tank was approaching and her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan’s screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.
Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Rajab, the sole survivor, and stayed on the line until contact was lost. Rajab, her five relatives and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.
The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.
In the other killing, Israeli troops opened fire on the vehicles of the 15 paramedics as they drove in the southern city of Rafah. The military said one deputy commander had been directed to step down.
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 and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.
At the time, U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called for "justice and answers.”
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened," said Jonathan Whittall, a U.N. official who helped recover the bodies.
The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were "advancing suspiciously” on nearby troops without headlights or emergency signals. But it backtracked from that account after the footage emerged, showing the Red Crescent and Civil Defense 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, told the AP in a phone call. "We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed the international humanitarian law.”
The military said it had decided not to open a criminal investigation into the April 2024 airstrikes that hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven staffers of the U.S.-based aid group, which has distributed food in Gaza throughout the war.
The aid group at the time said it had coordinated with the military over the movement of its cars. The vehicles, which had the group’s logo on their roofs visible from the air, were left incinerated and mangled, indicating multiple targeted strikes.
Wednesday's military statement said it had mistakenly identified several individuals in the vehicles as armed Hamas military operatives, and that the convoy deviated from the previously coordinated route. But it concluded that "the decisions of the commanders did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” At the time, two officers were removed from their positions and three others reprimanded.
The military also decided not to take criminal action over the killings of four staffers from Doctors Without Borders in two separate instances in November 2023 and February 2024. Israel later barred the medical charity from operating in Gaza.
Meanwhile, another seven Palestinians were killed and 23 others wounded in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll from Israel's genocide in the blockaded enclave since October 2023 to 73,407, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.
In its daily statistical report, the ministry said hospitals in Gaza received seven bodies and 23 injured people over the past 24 hours.
The ministry did not specify the circumstances surrounding the casualties, as the Israeli army continued to violate the October 2025 cease-fire through shelling and gunfire across different parts of the territory.
A number of victims remain trapped under rubble and on roads, with ambulance and civil defense crews still unable to reach them, the ministry added.
According to the ministry, 1,273 Palestinians have been killed and 4,223 others injured in Israeli violations of the cease-fire.
The ministry said the overall death toll from Israel's genocide has reached 73,407, with 174,335 others wounded.
Beyond the casualties, the Israeli campaign has caused widespread destruction, damaging about 90% of Gaza's civilian infrastructure, while the U.N. has estimated reconstruction costs at around $70 billion.
Francesca Albanese, an Italian legal and human rights academic, said that while political leaders and governments shirked their obligations, "far too many corporate entities have profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide."
Albanese, who was appointed U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories in 2022, has published a report entitled "From economy of occupation to economy of genocide."