Israel Launches Criminal Probe Into Killing of Young Gazan Girl Commemorated in Hollywood Film

Israel Defense Forces lawyers are opening a criminal investigation into a case that became a docudrama produced by Brad Pitt and other Hollywood celebrities — and has long fed anti-Israel allegations of widespread war crimes in Gaza. On Wednesday the IDF military advocate-general, Major General Itay Offir, announced decisions on several high-profile cases that generated worldwide headlines during the Gaza war. In at least one case, which was documented in an Oscar-nominated film, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” General Offir recommended a criminal probe. IDF critics have long accused the army, and Israel as a whole, of committing numerous war crimes that amount to “genocide” in the Gaza war. They also allege that crimes are habitually covered up. The army defenders note that the IDF went beyond any fighting force in urban warfare in efforts to protect noncombatants. Yet some cases, including the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab and six of her family members, make enough noise to warrant review. The advocate, General Offir, decided to open a criminal investigation in that case. The probe into a possible war crime will concentrate on targeting ambulances that came to the family’s aid, in which at least two Red Crescent paramedics were killed. The United Nations has “consistently stressed the importance that all alleged violations of international humanitarian law are investigated,” the spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters Thursday. Such instigations “must be prompt, they must be thorough, they must be independent, impartial, and transparent, and if wrongdoing is established those responsible must be held to account through effective judicial proceedings.”Mr. Dujarric called for “full accountability” by the IDF, adding, though, “I don’t want to prejudge the process and its outcome.” Critics claim that the IDF took its sweet time before addressing the celebrated Hind Rajab case. General Offir, though, was only recently appointed to the advocacy post. His predecessor, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, was fired after she was implicated in a scandal involving the leaking of supposedly incriminating footage in a separate case. Beyond delays involving General Tomer-Yerushalmi’s scandal, justice is rarely executed in a timeline that fits news deadlines. A murder trial of a suspect in the much-publicized 1996 killing of a hip hop icon, Tupac Shakur, opened this week at Las Vegas, three decades after the event.Few cases involving alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza have been as venerated as the Shakur killing. Nominated for this year’s Oscar, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” was written and directed by the Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania. Mr. Pitt, actor Joaquin Phoenix, director Spike Lee, and a host of other film industry luminaries are listed as executive producers of the American-French production.The Rajab case has long fed the notion that it was but the tip of an iceberg among IDF war crimes in Gaza. In the January 29, 2024, incident, the voice of the five-year-old girl was recorded as she begged paramedics to come to her aid while she and six family members were stuck in a car under IDF fire. When a Red Crescent ambulance finally arrived, it too came under fire.While General Offir ordered a criminal probe into the case, he has closed other cases that have generated world headlines. In an April 1, 2024, strike that killed employees of the World Central Kitchen, the IDF acknowledged that it misidentified the workers as Hamas operatives. General Offir, though, determined that their conduct did not amount to a criminal act.Similar errors that were deemed to fall short of crimes involve much publicized fatal strikes on employees of the Red Crescent and Doctors Without Borders.

Israel Launches Criminal Probe Into Killing of Young Gazan Girl Commemorated in Hollywood Film

Israel Launches Criminal Probe Into Killing of Young Gazan Girl Commemorated in Hollywood Film

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