Israel opens criminal investigation into Hind Rajab killing

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0:40Hello, welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Sean Lay in our studios in London. It's very good to have your company with us for this hour of news. And we begin with Gaza. Israel's military is opening internal criminal investigations into two of the most high-profile attacks on Palestinians during the war. In January 2024, Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl, was killed. She survived an initial attack which killed six of her relatives in the family car and then sat alone for hours beside their dead bodies. Hind pleaded for help on a telephone call to Palestinian emergency workers who were unable to safely approach.

1:24This audio, and much of the audio in this story, is distressing.

1:42By the time paramedics were able to safely reach Hind and the others in the vehicle, it was too late. We found six decomposed bodies, including girls, women and one man. The girl, Hind, she was identified among the decomposed bodies, indicating they had been subjected to gunfire and shelling. Here are the martyrs. Now they are all bones. Hind's mother, Wassan, said afterwards she wanted those responsible to answer for her daughter's death. For every person who heard my voice, my daughter's pleading voice, yet did not rescue her, I will question them before God on the day of judgment. Netanyahu, Biden and all those who collaborated against us, against Gaza and its people.

2:37I pray against them from the depth of my heart. The second incident to be investigated as a potential crime was the killing in March 2025 of 15 emergency aid workers and their bodies were found buried next to their emergency vehicles afterwards. One paramedic captured the incident on his phone, praying as they all came under a hail of bullets.

3:06Untha Abed, a Palestinian red Krezik medic, was the only survivor of that attack. He told the BBC what had happened. So when they fired upon us, I jumped into the back of the car. I didn't hear anything from my colleagues. They made no sound. I just heard what you might call their last moments. The ambulance stopped. There was so much firing on us. Everything stopped in the ambulance. Nothing worked anymore. I jumped onto the floor in the back of the ambulance. That's the only way I survived. If I hadn't done that, I would have been killed. But the Israel Defence Forces, the IDF, has decided that a third high-profile attack in March 2024, in which seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen died, will not be investigated further because there is, it says, quote, no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct that would justify the opening of a criminal investigation.

4:05World Central Kitchen responded to the IDF's decision with the words, deeply offensive. We did ask the IDF for an interview. They declined, though they have issued a statement. Lucy Williamson, our Middle East correspondent, reported on Hind Rajab's killing at the time. Before we came on air,

4:26I asked Lucy what the IDF has said to explain its decision to investigate these two cases as potential crimes. Well, there were three cases that they said didn't need investigation, high-profile cases that resulted in the killing of aid workers. And in those cases, they said there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. But in the two cases you mentioned, one, the 15 Palestinian emergency workers in emergency vehicles who were killed, they seemed to suggest that the vehicles drove into an ambush that had been set up to target Hamas members and that the troops then fired on these vehicles.

5:10It does admit that the troops then went on to crush the emergency vehicles and buried the bodies. We should say that one very sort of high-profile investigation led by a British university suggested that some of the gunshots you can hear in those clips were fired from just a few metres away, so at very, very close range. That kind of detail isn't addressed in what the IDFs put out today. But it says that's one of the cases that will be handed to the military police for investigation. And the other case that you mentioned, the case of Hind Rajab, the Israeli military have said really ever since that happened that their forces were not in the area, have never admitted that their forces killed Hind and her family.

5:56But now they have said that, in fact, it was Israeli forces that fired at the family car she was traveling in. And it says that car was traveling on a different route to the evacuation route that had been published that day for people leaving that part of Gaza City. They said that the car was traveling towards Israeli forces. They fired at the car and they also shelled the ambulance that came to rescue Hind hours later. and that ambulance had been coordinated with the Israeli military and that was one of the reasons they said why they were passing this on for investigation. It has taken a long time then to get to that admission that there were Israeli forces in the area and that they did fire on the car and obviously the details will now be subjects of that investigation.

6:45I just wonder why you think they've made the decision to pursue these cases now, why it's taken so long and have they perhaps come under any sort of international pressure over these cases and others? Well, I think the Israeli military would say it was taking its time investigating, but I think you're right. There are many others who will point to the context this is happening in. There is enormous international pressure on Israel and has been for years over its actions in Gaza. Its soldiers are now facing criminal complaints by groups overseas. It's under, you know, arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court for Israel's prime minister and the former defence minister.

7:25There's a genocide case ongoing at the International Court of Justice. The UN has said that the killing of Hind Rajab may constitute a war crime. So it's under the enormous international pressure. But I think, interestingly, it's also under growing pressure at home as well. There have been more and more Israeli media reports about the conduct of its soldiers in Gaza and more and more investigations of that. and against this idea that is prevalent in Israel, that it has the most moral army in the world. So I think there is a lot of pressure, both at home and internationally on Israel at the moment.

8:04That's our Jerusalem correspondent, Lucy Williamson, talking to me a little earlier. Well, the decision by the IDF to convene criminal investigations followed work by its fact-finding and assessment mechanism. What then are the prospects of criminal investigation leading to criminal charges? Jiv Stahl is executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, asked for her reaction to the IDF's announcement. So I have to say we are pleased by the decision. Of course, we are really regretting the fact that they decided also to close three other investigations. But since we are aware that this is so rare that they do open investigations, we feel that this is pleasing to us in a way.

8:49if you can use that terminology on something so tragic. Why do you think these two cases might have prompted potential criminal investigation? Is there anything about these cases that is distinctive or in the circumstances they occurred that are particular and might warrant that kind of extra investigation? I have to say I don't know. They're not being transparent about the details of who they investigated, how they led the investigation, what facts do they have. So I can't really say. It's not unique for a military force to conduct judicial investigations of its own when its troops are involved and there are allegations against them.

9:36Is there anything about the way Israel conducts this that makes it different from that of other military? Yeah, so first of all, it's not an investigation yet. In cases like the war in Gaza and other incidents in Gaza, they created this special mechanism. And this is supposed to be a mechanism that conducts a quick assessment of whether or not there is suspicion of crime being committed, whether it's a war crime or a criminal offense. Maybe two points that you should know about this mechanism. One is that it's not quick at all. And as you've seen, those incidents that have been decided, they have decided to open an investigation.

10:17It took them years to decide that. And second is that the vast majority of the complaints and the reports about incidents do not reach the point where they decide to actually investigate and open a criminal investigation. And maybe a third point is that the army and this mechanism do not investigate commanders almost ever. and, of course, not policymakers and political leaders. So the investigations tend to be into troops on the ground, not necessarily the people who directed their actions. Exactly, and this is not even an investigation. It's just a preliminary examination. What sort of proportion of cases result in charges?

11:03Very, very few. From what we've looked at in previous operations in Gaza, We cannot say about this one because they haven't released a lot of data. But in previous cases, we saw that less than 1 % of the complaints and reports reached an indictment, which is very, very low. Less than 1%. And where charges are preferred and they are found, the person accused is found to have committed the offense, they are punished, presumably. They're punished, but a lot of the times the punishments are completely ridiculous in comparison to what the incident entailed and what people were charged of. So we know of incidents where a person was killed and the punishment at the end of all of this chain of mechanisms that we talked about ended in some kind of community service, but you do it in the military base.

12:00What do you think the effect of this process is? because there will be those in the IDF, and indeed they have said it in the statement that they've given to the BBC. We asked for an interview, but they provided us with a statement in which eventually they're saying, look, we are trying to get to the bottom of these cases. We sincerely have decided there is enough to justify a potential criminal investigation. We will investigate and we will investigate thoroughly that this is a just process. I have to say I disagree. I think the data shows also in routine investigations that military conducts in the West Bank, for example, that there is truly a fundamental lack of accountability for the military and what it does to Palestinians in the occupied territories, Gaza included.

12:51And basically they created this elaborate mechanism that kind of helps them to keep an appearance of trying to get to the bottom of the incidents and to achieve justice and accountability. But the matter of fact is that there is almost full impunity for soldiers who commit crimes against Palestinians. Shiv Stahl, executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din. And in 15 minutes' time, we'll be hearing about the ceasefire in Gaza, now 10 months old, from the BBC's John Donison. Do please stay with us for that. This is News Out.

13:37Coming up, a British man with dementia is facing deportation from Sweden, his home for 25 years, as part of an immigration crackdown affecting many elderly people who failed to file the right paperwork after Brexit. We find a lot of people that's been affected by Brexit in Sweden, mainly sick and elderly people who didn't listen to the communication from the authorities because most of the communication were online or in newspaper and they wasn't reached by the information of how to do it right. Our headlines this hour, Now, the Israeli military confirms for the first time it opened fire on a car in Gaza in which a five-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, was killed in 2024.

14:19It's launched a criminal investigation. President Trump says he expects to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, for the first time in his second term. An archaeologist in Sri Lanka make a major discovery, 17 gold-plated Buddha statues at a temple complex.

14:38This is NewsHour. I'm Sean Lay. In France, there are a number of cases at the moment in which victims allege they were drugged without their consent. Perhaps the most astonishing involves a high-ranking civil servant who's been accused of administering a diuretic to more than 200 women attending job interviews. Some of those who say they were drugged have told BBC Global Women that delays to justice have left them feeling victimised a second time around. Here's Nuala McGovern. She said, did you know Mr Negra was conducting an experiment on you? This is what a detective asked Marie-Hélène two years after a job interview with a French government official that took a humiliating turn.

15:19I've come down to the canal with Marie-Hélène. The canal is wide and green and the leaves of a horse chestnut tree draped down into the water, providing some much needed shade on this very hot day. This beautiful setting, however, is in stark contrast to the dreadful experience that Marie-Hélène went through just close to here. It was an interview that started quite normally. He suggested that we continue the interview outside while walking. Quite quickly during this walk, I felt an urge to urinate. Police say Christiane Negre spiked her coffee with powerful diuretics, triggering an urgent need to urinate, then led her away from toilets.

16:00The urge started to become unbearable, to the point that I had tears streaming down my cheeks from pain. I couldn't hold back and I urinated on myself with a terrible feeling of humiliation. For years, she blamed herself until a detective revealed she was one of nearly 250 women police say Negra targeted. They found an Excel table on his computer which was called Experiments P in which he noted the time the medication was administered, description of the urine stream, description of underwear. And then she pulled out a binder and I see photos of women's legs taken under the table. And then she says to me, do you recognise yourself?

16:40I was in shock. Negreux was placed under investigation for charges including drugging and sexual assault. He declined the BBC's request for comment. While the allegations against Christiane Negreux remain untested in court, It is one of several high-profile cases about alleged drugging that have sparked a national debate in France. A new scheme being piloted gives women direct access to toxicology testing if they fear they've been drugged. I've come to Garche Hospital campus in a leafy suburb of Paris to meet with Professor Jean-Claude Alvarez. Professor Alvarez is a toxicology expert and I've come to his lab to find out just how effective tests are to prove diuretic drugging.

17:24Here we are in our lab. We identify more than 400 molecules in blood, urine, viscera and hair, of course. In just six months, 200 women have sought direct testing at this Paris lab. Each envelope is one hair case. This is an example of hair, of a strand of hair that we can receive. We receive a lot, many strands every day in order to make a test. This is the results with the two picks here. It's a positive sample. Results from this lab can be vital evidence in court. But with new drugs circulating online, Professor Alvarez is having to cast the net ever wider to identify them. Meanwhile, the wheels of justice are turning slowly.

18:19Seven years after the investigation into Christiane Le Gray began, no trial date has been set. The BBC asked the French police, judiciary and government about the criticism of their handling of the case, but they did not respond. A decade on, Marie-Hélène says she still suffers from nightmares and urinary problems. By speaking out, she hopes to cast off the years of shame that she felt over what happened that day. I actually need people to know what happened to me and what happened to us. It's a small way to tell myself not to be ashamed or to hide.

18:57That report was compiled by Nuala McGovern. It's part of the BBC's Global Women's Strand.

19:07Now, here's some good news for those worried about the health of their children's lungs in the world's cities. A new study suggests that restricting the type of vehicles allowed into a particular area may eventually reverse some of the damage caused by traffic pollution. It examined health in parts of London designated ultra-low emission zones and in Luton, a town about 30 miles north of Britain's capital. The drivers of older, more polluting cars have to pay a fee to drive in an ultra-low emission zone and consequently fewer of them are being driven in them. Dr Ellen Wood is from Queen Mary University of London.

19:41She's the lead author of the study and she told me more about what her team had been looking at. We were looking at primary school aged children in London and Luton and looking at their lung development. And what we found is the strongest evidence yet that an effective clean air zone can reduce some of the harm caused to children by air pollution. so we found that the children's lungs in London were significantly smaller before the introduction of the clean air zone which is called the ultra low emission zone in London and then we followed them up over four years measuring their lungs annually and found that they had recovered their lung function to catch up with children from our comparator site which was another town that didn't have a low emission zone.

20:30And the recovery was significant? It was reversing the damage or just reversing some of the damage, would you say? So we had two different measures. In one of the measures of lung function, we found that it completely reversed and it came up to the comparable level to the Luton children. And in the second measure, it didn't come all the way up, which suggests that there's still work to be done. It's not like the low emission zone has managed to remove all of the air pollution in either place, actually, the one without the low emission zone or in London. There is always the question, isn't there, that correlation isn't necessarily causation.

21:10Do you believe that you've proven a link or provided evidence that suggests a link? Yeah, well, the kind of study that we undertook, which was a natural experiment, you can't definitely say causation with this kind of study. as you would be able to with a randomised trial. But this was the best type of study that you can do for a real world situation. And we controlled for many different factors that could have an effect on the lung growth. And we believe that, yes, this is very strong evidence. It's a very large study. It was very carefully carried out and with very good measurements of lung function.

21:52Have you yet presented it to London's politicians? We haven't personally presented it to the politicians. But you're hoping they're going to take an interest? I do hope that they will read our study, yes. It's all over the news today in London and England generally, so I'm hoping that they will take notice of it because it's a big study and it's important evidence. And it's potentially significant internationally as well, isn't it, research of this kind? Well, that's true, yes, of course. it extends beyond just London. It's not relevant just to children living in London. It has relevance to children growing up in any city where the air pollution is predominantly coming from traffic, where it could potentially have the effect of lowering the air pollution.

22:39Just a brief last thought, what else needs to be investigated? That's probably a bit unrealistic to ask you to say that briefly. Well, what we're going on to do at the moment is continuing to look at the same children in our cohort. So at the end of our study, they were aged between about 10 and 14. And we've now gone back and done a further measurement to see what the impact is on their lung function. Now they're all teenagers. Fascinating study there from Dr Helen Wood and her team at Queen Mary University of London. This is News Out from the BBC World Service. I'm going to disappear for about a minute or so, but do please stay with us and come back for more.

23:37Is President Trump snubbing South Korea to reignite his friendly relationship with Kim Jong-un? I'm Asma Khaled, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The U.S. and South Korea have been close allies since the 1950s. But this week, Trump announced that the U.S. will substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea. He cited his very good relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. For more, check out the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:10Welcome back to NewsHour. at least 107 people have been killed in a landslide at a mine in the Central African Republic. A local politician reported that the landslide happened on Tuesday afternoon in the gold mining area of Zamboy, close to the border with Cameroon. Videos circulating on social media appear to show a slope collapsing onto miners as some ran for safety. It's not clear what triggered the landslide, but mine collapses are common in the area, as the BBC's correspondent Paul Nyingtjea, who's in Yaounde, explained to me. The details are still emerging, but what we do know so far, according to a local mayor from the Cameroonian side who spoke to us, he's told us that at least 107 people have been killed following that landslide in Zamboy on the border between Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

24:58We saw videos showing the soil caving in on miners who were there to scoop gold while others were rushing out of the area for safety. Really, really tragic scenes there in Zamboye. And not the first time this sort of incident has happened. Is this another case of artisanal miners, people working independently, not in a regulated official mine, but effectively in kind of carved-out tunnels inside the mine work? Indeed. Incidents like this are very, very common in the Central African Republic and the region as a whole. Between March and June of this year, there have been several cases of landslides or mine collapses in the area, in the wider area.

25:43So it's something that is quite recurrent. And yes, it has brought to the fore the conversation about regulation or the lack of it. And people believe that the Central African Republic has really not got a handle on the situation. If miners keep dying as a result of landslides, then it really demonstrates that there is some sort of a vacuum in terms of implementation. We don't presumably know what caused this particular landslide as yet. I mean, had the weather been particularly stormy? That's right. It's still unclear at the moment. Reports from local media in the Central African Republic suggest that an investigation has been opened to ascertain the circumstances leading to that incident.

26:23But you did quite right say that the weather may have also contributed because the soil appears to be fragile as a result of digging that's being done there. Some pits are left uncovered, which makes it even more fragile whenever the rains come. We have a suggested death toll at the moment of about 100 people. I understand that it would be difficult to get an exact figure at this stage. Is the concern that that casualty figure is likely to rise? Yes, indeed. There are concerns that the figures are likely to rise, especially because when you look at the nature of that collapse, it buried several people while others were rushing in.