{"id":256945,"date":"2026-08-20T01:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256945\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T01:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T01:10:21","slug":"israels-military-has-been-investigating-its-conduct-in-gaza-this-is-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/256945\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s military has been investigating its conduct in Gaza. This is what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has published the findings of five internal probes that examined deadly attacks its soldiers launched on aid and medical workers in Gaza.<\/p>\n

The information released on Wednesday represents the IDF’s largest single information dump relating to civilian deaths since the war erupted in October 2023.<\/p>\n

Two of the most high-profile cases are now the subject of criminal investigations by military police, Israel’s military revealed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, in the other three cases, including one in which Australian charity worker Zomi Frankcom was killed, soldiers have been cleared of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

The findings were published by the General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM).<\/p>\n

The FFAM is part of Israel’s military and is responsible for launching initial investigations into suspected war crimes and judging whether they should be expanded.<\/p>\n

The way Israel’s military investigates itself has been criticised by human rights groups in and outside the country for not taking allegations of war crimes seriously enough.<\/p>\n

“A system that overwhelmingly closes cases without accountability, years after the fact, and only in response to sustained international pressure, is not justice, it’s a whitewash,” a spokesperson for prominent NGO Human Rights Watch told the ABC after the IDF published its findings.<\/p>\n

Here’s what you need to know about the information released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Criminal investigation opened into killing of Hind Rajab<\/p>\n

For the first time, the IDF has acknowledged it opened fire on the vehicle carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab and her family members.<\/p>\n

Rajab initially survived the attack on her family’s vehicle \u2014 one of the most widely condemned incidents of the war \u2014 as they fled Gaza City on January 29, 2025.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by her relatives’ corpses, she answered a call from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and stayed on the line for hours in the bullet-ridden car.<\/p>\n

The line was cut amid the sound of gunfire. A recording of Rajab’s hours-long plea was broadcast globally, drawing international condemnation.<\/p>\n

\"Hind<\/p>\n

Hind Rajab’s body was recovered 12 days after the car her family was in was shot up by the IDF. (AFP: Family Handout)<\/p>\n

In February 2025, the IDF said its initial investigation suggested no troops were in the area at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n

However, on Wednesday, it conceded for the first time soldiers had fired on the car Rajab was in, and the ambulance that had attempted to rescue her had also had “a shell fired towards it”.<\/p>\n

Rajab’s body was found 12 days later alongside six family members<\/a> and two paramedics.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the IDF said this incident was now the subject of a criminal probe being handled by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID), the Israeli military’s main arm for investigating allegations of criminal offences.<\/p>\n

Rajab’s story inspired an Oscar-nominated film called The Voice of Hind Rajab and the formation of legal non-profit organisation The Hind Rajab Foundation, which said it had “no confidence in the Israeli military’s reported decision to open criminal investigations”.<\/p>\n

Criminal investigation opened after IDF soldiers killed Palestinian paramedics<\/p>\n

The IDF also announced on Wednesday a criminal investigation had been opened after Israeli soldiers killed 15 Palestinians, including Red Crescent paramedics, in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025.<\/p>\n

This incident attracted significant international attention at the time. The IDF on Wednesday said the MPCID had initiated a probe because “the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct”.<\/p>\n

The IDF claims that in the early hours of the morning of March 23 its soldiers opened fire on several rescue vehicles in the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp, near Rafah, in three separate incidents over the course of about 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

“It later became apparent that the vehicles struck in the first and second shooting incidents were a fire truck and ambulances, and that the vehicle struck in the third shooting incident was a Palestinian UN vehicle,” the IDF statement released this week read.<\/p>\n

The IDF claimed that across the three incidents it killed a total of 15 Palestinians, six of which it said were Hamas militants.<\/p>\n

But it conceded “medical personnel and paramedics” were also among the victims. It said a commander had already been reprimanded, and a deputy commander had been fired over the incident.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it wanted the formation of an “independent international commission of inquiry to uncover the circumstances of this crime”.<\/p>\n

IDF will not continue investigating strike that killed Australian woman<\/p>\n

The IDF announced on Wednesday there would be no criminal investigation into a strike on April 1, 2024, that killed seven humanitarian workers, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom, travelling in a charity organisation’s convoy.<\/p>\n

The IDF said it had concluded there were serious failures that led soldiers to falsely decide a Hamas fighter was travelling in the convoy, which actually belonged to the food charity World Central Kitchen (WCK)<\/p>\n

While Israel’s military claimed there was an armed man travelling with the vehicles, it said it now understood that person was a security guard.<\/p>\n

In the findings released on Wednesday, the IDF claimed it “mistakenly believed that the vehicles contained Hamas military operatives and therefore struck the vehicles”.<\/p>\n

\"Zomi<\/p>\n

Zomi Frankcom had worked for WCK for several years before she was killed in an IDF strike. (Supplied: Facebook)<\/p>\n

Despite the fact there will be no criminal investigation, two IDF commanders have already been stripped of their ranks as colonel and major. A colonel, a major general and a brigadier general have also been reprimanded over the incident.<\/p>\n

In a statement, WCK described the IDF’s decision as “deeply offensive”.<\/p>\n

“The military investigation conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame for the IDF’s illegal conduct,” it read.<\/p>\n

“We continue to demand truth and justice for our team and their families.”<\/p>\n

No criminal probe into IDF killing of M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res employees<\/p>\n

The last two attacks addressed in Wednesday’s IDF statement involved the killing of M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) employees in the enclave’s south.<\/p>\n

The first took place early on February 20, 2024, when the IDF struck a building in the southern area of Khan Yunis, which it said was “later found to belong to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res”.<\/p>\n

Two women were killed in the attack and seven others were injured. Wednesday’s statement claimed IDF troops identified a building overlooking a route they “did not operationally control \u2026 near Hamas combat compounds where the presence of enemy forces in the area and its surroundings was expected”.<\/p>\n

The statement claimed the building was situated in a location that posed a threat, adding that the lights were off and there was no movement.<\/p>\n

Under international law, objects may be attacked in certain circumstances if they qualify as a military target by their “nature, location, purpose or use” or if they make an “effective contribution to military action”.<\/p>\n

In cases of doubt, a typically civilian object should be presumed not to be used for military purposes.<\/p>\n

According to an MSF statement at the time of the attack, an Israeli tank fired on a house where MSF employees and their families were staying.<\/p>\n

The IDF review concluded the troops fired for a military purpose at what they assessed to be a military objective, and that there was no basis to initiate a criminal probe.<\/p>\n

However, the statement did say that “certain faults” had been identified during the attack, and they would be dealt with directly with the relevant commanders.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A boy inspects the site of an Israeli strike on the shelter belonging to MSF in Khan Younis. (Reuters: Mohammed Salem)<\/p>\n

The second attack involving MSF employees discussed in Wednesday’s statement took place on November 18, 2023, in Gaza City.<\/p>\n

The IDF statement claimed a miscommunication between military authorities and soldiers at a checkpoint meant an MSF convoy that had approval to travel between the charity’s facilities in the north and south of the strip was stopped and told to wait.<\/p>\n

The IDF claimed the convoy ignored instructions to wait and attempted to return to Gaza City without permission and that Israeli soldiers fired “warning shots” towards the road.<\/p>\n

In its findings, the IDF claimed there was a “possibility” two passengers in the convoy were killed “by bullet ricochet or bullet splash from the warning fire”.<\/p>\n

The ABC has contacted MSF for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has published the findings of five internal probes that examined deadly attacks its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[15149,70923,496,1411,70751,423,37,1663,9221,70922,70884],"class_list":["post-256945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-aid-workers","tag-aid-workers-killed","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-hind-rajab","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-israel-defense-forces","tag-military-investigation","tag-military-police","tag-zomi-frankcom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117125174305869117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}