Israel’s military announced on August 19, 2026, its first criminal investigations into troop conduct during the war in Gaza, focusing on the 2024 killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family alongside the 2025 deaths of 15 Palestinian paramedics in Rafah.
The Israel Defense Forces released the update after completing internal reviews of approximately 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza, reaching final decisions on five specific high-profile cases, according to reporting from the Associated Press. While opening criminal probes into the two incidents, the military opted against criminal investigations for three other major strikes involving aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders.
Criminal Probes Ordered Into Hind Rajab and Rafah Paramedic Killings
The decision targets two events that drew sustained international condemnation. In February 2024, 5-year-old Hind Rajab was trapped in a car in Gaza City with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she was killed. The military admitted in its August 19, 2026 statement that troops fired at the vehicle carrying the child, her aunt, uncle, and four cousins as they attempted to flee an invasion.
Fifteen-year-old Layan Hamada, Hind’s cousin, had managed to call the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center as gunfire sprayed around them, telling dispatchers that a tank was approaching and that her family members had been killed. Gunshots then echoed over the line, and Layan’s screaming stopped. When emergency dispatchers sent an ambulance to rescue the sole surviving child, contact was lost. Twelve days later, searchers found the bodies of Hind, her relatives, and two dispatched Red Crescent medics.
The second criminal investigation centers on the March 2025 killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil defense workers in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah. Troops opened fire on an initial ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an offensive, subsequently firing on other emergency vehicles that arrived to search for the first team. According to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings, troops bulldozed over the bodies and mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave where U.N. and rescue workers could not reach them until a week later.
Disciplinary Action Clears World Central Kitchen Strike While Probes Proceed
While the military elevated the Hind Rajab and Rafah paramedic incidents to full criminal investigations, it handled other high-profile operational failures through internal disciplinary measures rather than criminal charges. The military cleared troops of criminal wrongdoing in the World Central Kitchen strike after concluding that commanders’ decisions did not cross the criminal threshold, despite acknowledging failures in the process.
The military’s August 19 statement did not mention several other high-profile incidents that it previously pledged to examine, including strikes on a southern Gaza hospital in August 2025 that killed five journalists, among them freelance visual journalist Mariam Dagga.
Reactions From Victims’ Families and Aid Organizations
Hind Rajab’s grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, insisted that domestic military reviews cannot deliver true accountability.
“An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable. We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”
Hind Rajab (grandmother), family statement via Associated Press
Similarly, Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Eid Azizi rejected the scope of the military’s internal measures, telling reporters that the organization was not obligated to prove truths that were already evident to the international community.
Chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, also condemned the military’s decision on social media, calling the refusal to pursue criminal charges in the aid-worker strikes wrong and painful
according to coverage across multiple outlets.
Broader Context of the Conflict and Casualty Toll
Israel’s ensuing operations in Gaza have killed more than 73,000 people, according to records maintained by Gaza’s Health Ministry.
While rights organizations and United Nations commissions continue to argue that the scale of civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction amounts to war crimes and genocide, Israeli officials maintain that their judicial apparatus is fully capable of investigating and addressing troop violations. Human rights advocates counter that soldiers are rarely held accountable through internal military channels, leaving families to press for external international oversight.
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