JERUSALEM — Israel's military on Wednesday announced its first criminal investigations into troop conduct in Gaza, focusing on the killings of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family and of 15 Palestinian paramedics.The military said it would not probe three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders.It said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza and made decisions on the five cases.Chef José Andrés, founder of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, condemned the decision on X as "wrong and painful."The investigations involve killings that drew a heavy international outcry.
Hind was trapped in a vehicle with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she too was killed in February 2024.After the shooting of the 15 medics in March 2025, troops bulldozed their bodies into a mass grave.Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, including tens of thousands of women and children, according to the territory's Health Ministry.
Rights groups and U.N.commissions have said the campaign amounts to genocide and that Israeli forces have committed a litany of war crimes, including indiscriminate use of force and deliberate killings of civilians.Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it is targeting Hamas after its October 2023 attack on southern Israel.
It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded strip.Israeli officials contend the country's justice system can address any violations by its troops, but rights groups say soldiers are almost never held accountable.Wednesday's statement did not mention many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate, such as its 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.Hind's...