Category: News

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 then 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 its 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.

The 5-year-old was the last alive in a stranded car

Hind’s grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation into her killing is not enough.

“An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable,” she said. “We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”

The military in Wednesday’s statement admitted to firing at the car carrying the 5-year-old, four of her cousins, and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.

As gunfire sprayed around them, the girl’s cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling them her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan’s screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.

Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Hind and stayed on the line with her until contact was lost. Hind, her five relatives, and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.

The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab foundation, told Al-Jazeera he considered the military investigations a “charade meant to whitewash the culprits instead of convicting them.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent also insists on an international investigation, said Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the organization in Gaza. “Israeli measures are not enough,” he told the AP.

A movie docudrama about Hind’s death, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” won international awards and was nominated for an Oscar.

The 15 medics had been trying to reach casualties

In the paramedics’ killing, Israeli troops fired on an ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, then fired on other emergency vehicles that came looking for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings. Fifteen medics and emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Gaza’s Civil Defense were killed.

Troops then bulldozed over the bodies and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on troops without headlights or emergency signals. But it backtracked after the footage emerged, showing the teams driving slowly with their emergency lights flashing and logos visible. A deputy commander was directed to step down over the killings.

“We are not obligated to prove the truth because it is already proven to the whole world,” Eid Azizi, a Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson, told the AP in a phone call. “We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed the international humanitarian law.”

Israel will not criminally probe World Central Kitchen strike

The military said it had decided against a criminal investigation into April 2024 airstrikes that hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven staffers.

The aid group, which distributes food in Gaza, said at the time it had coordinated with the military over the convoy’s movement. The vehicles, which had the group’s logo on their roofs visible from the air, were left incinerated and mangled.

Wednesday’s military statement said individuals in the vehicles were mistakenly identified as armed Hamas operatives. But it concluded that the commanders’ decisions “did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” At the time, two officers were removed from their positions and three others reprimanded.

World Central Kitchen responded in a statement saying the military’s account of the strike was untrue, “conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame.” It called for an independent investigation.

The military also decided not to take criminal action over the killings of four staffers from Doctors Without Borders in two separate instances in November 2023 and February 2024.

What happens next?

Military investigators will now take up the probes and present their findings to military prosecutors. The military advocate general can then decide to keep investigating, indict any soldiers involved or decline to charge them.

Any action will take a long time, if it comes at all, said Tal Steiner, head of the Israeli rights group HaMoked.

Indictments are very uncommon and convictions even more so, she said, recalling only one soldier who had spent time behind bars since Oct. 7, 2023, for alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners. That soldier was imprisoned for seven months under a June 2025 plea bargain.

“It’s very rare that soldiers accused of harming Palestinians even go to court … and even rarer that they get a severe punishment,” Steiner said.

Just 0.17% of all military investigations launched during three Gaza operations from 2014 to 2022 led to prosecution, according to an analysis by Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

The war’s toll keeps growing

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 others.

Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza since a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, killing at least 1,270 people, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children constitute about half of the dead.

JUBA, South Sudan — At least 36 humanitarian workers and contractors have been killed in South Sudan since January, surpassing the 31 killed in all of 2025, as violence persists in the country that’s one of the most dangerous for aid workers, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator there said Wednesday.

“These are not just statistics,” Ramanathan Balakrishnan said in a statement marking World Humanitarian Day, adding: “Every killing must be investigated, and those responsible held accountable. The continued loss of humanitarian personnel, overwhelmingly South Sudanese nationals, is unacceptable.”

More than 450 incidents of violence against humanitarian workers and assets were reported between January and July, more than double the number recorded during the same period last year, according to the U.N. Mission in South Sudan.

Renewed fighting between government forces and opposition fighters has forced aid organizations to relocate from some areas, further restricting access to vulnerable communities in a country of about 12 million people that has struggled with both conflict and the effects of climate change since independence from Sudan in 2011.

Humanitarian organizations are calling on the South Sudan government and all parties to the 2018 peace agreement meant to end civil war to protect aid workers, investigate attacks and ensure safe and unhindered access to people in need.

Around 10 million people are expected to need humanitarian assistance this year, including more than 7.5 million facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to the U.N.

Last week, the U.N. refugee agency and World Food Program warned that more than 650,000 refugees and asylum seekers in South Sudan risk losing access to lifesaving food, nutrition and other assistance because of severe funding shortages.

BUNIA, Congo — The Ebola outbreak in Congo has reached 5,000 cases, government data showed Wednesday, as responders warn it is spreading at an unprecedented speed, outpacing efforts to slow it in one of the country’s remotest regions.

Data from Congo’s Ministry of Health showed the outbreak had so far recorded 5,021 cases, including 2,378 deaths as of Sunday, as it rages in some of the most challenging conditions imaginable fueled by insecurity, displacement and intense population movements.

The outbreak has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other outbreak in history. The World Health Organization estimates it will likely surpass the outbreak of 2014 to 2016 across West Africa, which was the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record with more than 11,000 deaths.

Starting from the first detected case, the current outbreak has spread about three times faster than the deadliest on record.

The outbreak “has spread rapidly and the risk of further national and international spread remains high,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday at a meeting convened by the agency.

“We must be frank: the epidemic is far from being under control,” he said.

Thérèse Anyiya, a nurse working in Ituri’s capital Bunia, said she is exhausted by the work demands and poor working conditions. Some health workers have gone on strike after not being paid.

“If the managers don’t take things seriously, we too will end up withdrawing. The way this epidemic is being managed is exhausting,” Anyiya told The Associated Press.

A key challenge has been the lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus, which is responsible for the current outbreak. Most new cases are being reported outside of the people being monitored, showing it has spread quickly and left surveillance teams racing to catch up.

Lack of information in Ituri causes attacks on health workers

Ituri, the province that has been hit the worst by the outbreak, has become a primary location for violence that has limited the response as health workers are targeted.

Residents on Monday attacked a health team in the territory of Aru after a suspected case was reported there. A mob set fire to an ambulance and damaged two other vehicles, according to Michael Wani, president of the Union of Cultural Associations for the Development of Ituri.

Dr. Martin Cwinyay, who is involved in the Ituri response efforts, explained it is “essential to bring the response closer to the people, particularly in rural, mining and displacement areas.”

Trish Newport, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said not all the people in the impacted areas have the essential information they need.

“The community needs to be aware about the outbreak. They need to be involved in the response. They need to know what the signs and symptoms are and what to do if they get sick,” Newport said.

Limited care is resulting in more deaths

Experts believe the virus began spreading from the mining town of Mongbwalu as early as February, months before authorities declared the outbreak on May 15.

Responders racing to catch up are also battling several other challenges including threats by rebel groups, anger from communities that have been traumatized for years and bad roads into the affected territories.

Although the 2014-2016 outbreak is considered the deadliest among the virus types that causes Ebola disease, government data shows this Bundibugyo outbreak has killed a higher percentage of people as care and support are not getting to patients quickly enough, while many are not reporting symptoms or doing so late.

The situation also varies across the six affected provinces. While the case fatality rate is so far 47.4%, it is far worse in some places where response efforts are more challenging, such as in North Kivu province where the fatality rate is 70%.