There are some stories that do not end when the shooting stops.
They linger in a child’s final words, in a telephone line left open for hours, in the silence that follows when someone on the other end is waiting desperately for help that may never come.
For five-year-old Hind Rajab, the world heard those moments.
She was trapped inside a vehicle in Gaza City in January 2024 after Israeli fire struck the car carrying her and members of her family. Her relatives were killed. Hind survived, but she was alone, frightened and surrounded by the bodies of her family.
Then she made a phone call.
That call, filled with a child’s desperate pleas for rescue, would become one of the most haunting accounts of the Gaza war.
Now, more than two years after her death, the Israeli military has acknowledged for the first time that its forces opened fire on the vehicle carrying Hind and her family.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also announced that a criminal investigation will be opened into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
‘Please Come And Get Me’
After the attack on the vehicle, Hind managed to contact the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
For hours, she remained on the telephone with emergency workers as she waited for an ambulance.
The little girl was not simply reporting an emergency. She was a child trapped in a nightmare, calling strangers because there was nobody else left to call.
The Red Crescent eventually dispatched an ambulance to rescue her.
The journey was coordinated with the Israeli military, according to the account of the incident.
But the rescuers never brought Hind home.
The ambulance was shelled, killing two paramedics who had gone looking for her.
Days later, Hind’s body was recovered alongside those of her relatives.
The tragedy transformed her name into a symbol of the human cost of the war.
Israel Changes Its Account
The IDF had initially said that none of its troops were operating in the area when Hind was killed.
That account quickly came under scrutiny.
The military later acknowledged that its forces had conducted operations in parts of Gaza City, including the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood where Hind had been trapped.
Its latest statement represents another significant shift.
Following a review, the IDF said it had decided to investigate the incident through its Military Police Criminal Investigation Division.
“Due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation,” the military said.
The investigation is expected to examine the circumstances surrounding the ambulance’s movement and the deaths that followed.
But for Hind’s family, the announcement comes long after the child at the centre of the case has been buried.
A Child’s Voice Became Evidence
What made Hind’s story particularly devastating was that part of her final ordeal was recorded.
Her conversation with Red Crescent emergency workers lasted for hours.
The recording captured the fear of a five-year-old who understood that something terrible had happened but could do little more than wait.
At one point, the line went silent amid the sound of gunfire.
Hind was gone.
The recording travelled far beyond Gaza, prompting international outrage and calls for an independent investigation into what happened.
Her story later inspired The Voice of Hind Rajab, an Oscar-nominated film that brought the tragedy to an even wider audience.
For many who followed the case, the film was not merely about a military incident. It was about the unbearable vulnerability of a child caught in a war she had neither started nor understood.
The Wider Investigation
Hind’s case is not the only incident now facing renewed scrutiny.
The IDF said it would also investigate the deaths of 15 Palestinians, including medical workers and a United Nations employee, near Rafah in southern Gaza last year.
However, the military said it found no grounds for criminal investigations in three other cases.
Those include the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen workers in Deir al-Balah in 2024 and four Médecins Sans Frontières employees killed in two separate incidents.
The differing decisions are likely to attract further scrutiny from international organisations and rights groups.
Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations that its military deliberately targets civilians and has maintained that its forces operate in accordance with international law.
Why The Investigation Matters
The decision to open criminal proceedings comes at a time when Israel’s military justice system is facing intense international attention.
The IDF has come under pressure to demonstrate that allegations of wrongdoing by its personnel are investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.
That pressure has also been linked to wider international legal proceedings, including scrutiny by the International Criminal Court.
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For Israel, investigations conducted by its own institutions can be important in demonstrating that alleged violations are not simply ignored.
For Palestinians and human rights organisations, however, the central question is whether such investigations can deliver accountability for people who have already lost their lives.
And that brings the story back to Hind.
She was five years old.
She did not know about international courts, military investigations or diplomatic pressure.
She knew only that her family had been killed, that she was frightened and that someone on the other end of a telephone might be able to save her.
She waited.
An ambulance came.
The rescuers were killed.
Hind was later found dead.
More than two years later, the Israeli military says it will investigate how it happened.
For a child whose final hours were spent asking the world not to leave her alone, the question now is whether that investigation can finally provide an answer worthy of the life that was lost.