An Al Jazeera investigation has shown three Israeli tanks surrounding the car where a six-year-old girl was killed after hours of calling for help.
However, the Israeli military denied this on Saturday and said its troops were not in the area on January 29, the day Hind Rajab and her family were killed.
Here's the full story, what Israel claims and how Al Jazeera investigators placed Israeli tanks at the murder scene:
What happened to Hind?
Hind's story traveled around the world when a phone recording of what is now understood to be the last moments of her and her family went viral on social media.
In the call, which lasted about three hours, Hind begged rescuers to come and save her after the family's car was attacked and she became the only survivor, trapped inside with her dead relatives.
Two Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) dispatchers sent to save her also died.
The PRCS has accused Israel of deliberately attacking the medical team despite exchanges between the organization and the army as the doctors tried to obtain permission to evacuate Hind.
Hind and her cousins are just some of the thousands of children killed in Israel's relentless war on Gaza, in violation of international law. Nearly 30,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7.
What has Israel said?
According to a Times of Israel report, Israeli officials said an initial investigation showed that troops were not present in the Tal al-Hawa suburb of Gaza City on January 29 when Hind and five other members of his family were killed. .
“It appears that… troops were not present near the vehicle or within firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found,” read an Israeli army statement.
The statement directly contradicts the evidence recorded in the phone call circulating between PRCS and Hind.
“Furthermore, given the lack of forces in the area, there was no need for individual coordination of the movement of the ambulance or other vehicle to pick up the girl,” says the statement, which goes against the Palestinian Red Crescent statement. that he had been working to coordinate with the Israeli army.
The statement goes on to claim that doctors are moving unrestricted throughout the Gaza Strip, which runs counter to multiple accounts outside Gaza.
What did Al Jazeera find?
Sanad, Al Jazeera's investigations unit, analyzed phone records and satellite images to show that Israeli troops were near Hind's family's car that day.
The investigation found that the vehicle had been stopped by the Israeli military near a gas station in Tal al-Hawa around the early afternoon of January 29.
A phone call from Hind's uncle to a relative in Germany triggered PRCS intervention. Al Jazeera obtained messages between family members, time-stamping the final hours of the ordeal when Hind and one of her cousins, 15-year-old Layan, were still alive.
Layan, who was the first to call the PRCS, identified the Israeli tanks near the car and said: “They are shooting at us; The tank is next to me.” Within minutes, a burst of what sounded like a gunshot was heard and Layan, who was screaming, fell silent.
When Hind picked up the phone and spoke to PRCS, he also identified Israeli military vehicles near the family car. “The tank is next to me. [It’s] “It comes from the front of the car,” he said. About three hours later, the connection to Hind was cut.
Al Jazeera's analysis of satellite images taken at midday on January 29 corroborated Hind and Layan's accounts, and placed at least three Israeli tanks just 270 meters (886 feet) from the family's car, pointing their guns at it.
When rescuers found the remains of Hind and her family on February 10, the car was riddled with bullet holes that likely came from more than one direction.
What happened to the ambulance?
Doctors Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun arrived at the scene around 6 pm on January 29, after several hours of the PRCS attempting to obtain permission from the Israeli army.
“I'm almost there,” Zeino told his colleagues as the ambulance approached Hind. But the two rescuers never reached her. “We heard shots, we couldn't imagine [they] I would shoot them,” Rana Faqih, the PRCS official who held the line with Hind, told Al Jazeera. After the shots, there was total silence.
Only 12 days later, on February 10, the remains of the two men were found, after the withdrawal of the Israeli army. The ambulance was destroyed and appeared to have been run over by a tank, according to Sanad's analysis.
Whats Next?
The United States, Israel's number one ally, has called for an investigation into the murder of Hind, her family and doctors.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters: “We have asked Israeli authorities to urgently investigate this incident.”
After the initial finding on Hind's case was published on Saturday, Israeli officials told local journalists that the investigation had been transferred to the General Staff's Investigative Evaluation Mechanism for further analysis.
Similar Israeli investigations have not been simple. Authorities denied the May 2022 murder of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh for several months before admitting that Israeli gunfire had killed the veteran journalist, claiming they were “unintentional.”
