JERUSALEM (AP) — The mother of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was found dead days after Israeli forces fired on her family’s car in Gaza City wants an independent inquiry into her death, saying an Israeli military investigation announced this week is insufficient.Wesam Hamada said her daughter Hind Rajab’s final pleas still haunt her.“All I remember is her voice pleading, ‘Mama, I’m scared. Mama, I’m hungry. Mama, I’m hurt,’” she said. “Her voice keeps repeating in my ears.”The widely publicized recording of Hind’s January 2024 phone call with her mother and emergency dispatchers made her one of the Israel-Hamas war’s most prominent casualties.Israel’s military this week admitted to firing at the family’s car as it fled an Israeli invasion and firing toward an ambulance dispatched to help them. It said it would launch a criminal investigation into its troops’ conduct. All six people in the car and two paramedics were killed. But both Rajab’s family and emergency responders from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society doubt the Israeli investigation can deliver justice.
“Why did the investigation and the acknowledgment of the shooting at Hind’s car and at the paramedics come only after more than two years?” Hamada said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s an attempt to distract from what’s happening in Gaza and improve the (Israeli) army’s image to the world. That’s it.”
