What to Know About Israel’s Probe Into the Killing of Hind Rajab

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers opened fire on a vehicle carrying 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and six of her relatives in Gaza, and said it would launch a criminal investigation into the incident.The admission, issued Wednesday as part of the IDF’s review of roughly 150 “exceptional” incidents involving its troops during the war in Gaza, reverses the military’s previous denial that its forces were in the area when Rajab and her relatives from the Hamada family were killed in January 2024.In findings published by its General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), an internal IDF body tasked with conducting factual reviews of exceptional operational incidents, the IDF said Israeli troops fired on the Hamada family’s vehicle as it approached them, killing five passengers. Rajab and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada initially survived. Twelve days later, their bodies were recovered from the vehicle by rescue workers returning to the area, along with those of the five relatives who had been killed in the initial shooting.The IDF said it was opening a criminal investigation after its review identified alleged...