India, Aug. 22 -- Israel's military has ordered a criminal investigation into the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab, the Palestinian girl whose recorded pleas for rescue from a bullet-riddled car in Gaza City became one of the defining images of civilian suffering in the war, more than two years after her death and after months of denial that troops were even present at the scene.

The Israel Defence Forces said in a statement this week that it would open the inquiry following a review of the incident, citing what it described as failures in the coordination of a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance that was sent to rescue the child. It marked the first time the military has acknowledged, after two years of denial, that its own forc...