For months, Biden administration officials have deflected questions about Israel’s killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab and her family members, saying they would leave the investigation into the incident to Israeli authorities. But a Palestinian aid group has now refuted claims that the Israeli military is even investigating the incident, new reports show.
On Monday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the latest update from Israel on its alleged investigation into the killing was that Israel had asked the UN and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) for information on the incident, but neither group had responded.
“All I can tell you is what they told us. And they said they went to the United Nations and the Palestinian Red Crescent and asked them for information that would help them. And they claim they didn’t get any,” Miller said.
But The InterceptPrem Thakker of the Israeli army reported on Tuesday that the Israeli military never contacted the PRCS, the group said.
“Since the attack on our ambulances sent to rescue Hind Rajab, there has been no investigation by the Israelis and no contact from the Israelis with the Red Crescent,” PRCS spokesman Nebal Farsakh told The Intercept“We as the Palestinian Red Crescent have not received any communication from the Israeli military.”
The conflicting statements suggest that either Israeli or U.S. officials are lying about their knowledge of Israeli forces’ involvement in Rajab’s death in January of this year. The tragedy became a flashpoint in Israel’s genocidal onslaught after a haunting recording of her three-hour phone conversation (before Israeli forces killed her) in which she pleaded with rescue workers to save her circulated online.
A recent investigation by Forensic Architecture found that Israeli forces fired 355 shots at the car carrying Rajab and her family. The gunshot wounds and damage are consistent with weapons used by Israeli forces. It is implausible that the gunman in the tank did not know that Rajab and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada were in the car they were shooting at, Forensic Architecture found.
The investigation also found that the destruction of the ambulance and the killing of the PRCS dispatchers who came to rescue Rajab were also likely caused by an Israeli tank.
Israeli officials claimed they were not present in the area at the time. However, Palestinians refuted this claim. Evidence collected by journalists and foreign investigators repeatedly showed that Israeli tanks were in the area and had surrounded the car where Rajab was hiding when she and her family were killed.
In addition, both Rajab and Hamada had informed the emergency services that there was an Israeli tank right next to the car.
But U.S. officials leading the Israeli army’s defense in the gruesome attack and Miller repeated Israel’s claim that its military had no presence in the area on Monday.
U.S. authorities are relying on Israel to investigate many of the horrific incidents during the genocide itself, perhaps to distract from U.S. knowledge of Israel’s wrongdoing while Biden officials continue to fund the massacre.
The Israeli army has claimed to have launched several investigations, usually into incidents that have been highlighted by the media or the Internet. However, many of these investigations are ongoing. In one case, the army closed an investigation – an investigation into the killing of seven World Central Kitchen employees by the Israel Defense Forces, which sparked international outrage – and the Israel Defense Forces cleared itself of any wrongdoing just four days after the killings.
