Filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, director of the Oscar-nominated docudrama "The Voice of Hind Rajab," has dismissed a newly announced Israeli military investigation into the 2024 killing of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab as a "smokescreen." The Israeli military confirmed on Wednesday that its troops fired on the car carrying Rajab and six family members in Gaza in January 2024, after previously denying its forces were present at the scene; media investigations had already produced evidence implicating nearby Israeli tanks. The case became one of the most widely condemned incidents of the early Gaza war, and Ben Hania's film, which used the recording of Rajab's call to the Red Cross, went on to win the Venice grand jury prize and earn BAFTA and Oscar nominations.

Rajab died after a three-hour call pleading for help from the Palestinian Red Cross, and an ambulance dispatched to rescue her was also struck, killing two medics. The Israeli military said it would launch a criminal investigation via its military police, citing "alleged failures in the coordination" of the ambulance's movement, more than two years after the killing. In an Instagram statement, Ben Hania argued that sufficient evidence — independent investigations, satellite imagery, ballistic analysis and Rajab's own recorded voice — had existed for years, and called instead for justice delivered by an independent authority, saying Israeli forces continue to kill Palestinians in Gaza and intensify actions in the West Bank.