The officer, who has not been named, is charged with two counts of illegal use of a weapon, two counts of inappropriate behaviour and exceeding his authority and one count of obstruction of justice.

The trial concerns 13-year-old Iman al-Hams who was shot dead by soldiers on October 5 in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on suspicion she was carrying explosives in her school satchel.

A fellow soldier testified that the commander then fired into the girl's body several times. The doctor who examined the body told AFP it was riddled with 20 bullets, including five in the head.

The commander was officially indicted on November 22, just five weeks after he was cleared of any wrongdoing in another army investigation.

According to the indictment, after the girl was injured in the initial burst of fire from the outpost, the officer and another soldier approached the girl as she was lying on the ground.

Telling the other soldier to wait at a distance, the officer went on ahead and on reaching the girl "pointed his weapon, an M16, down and shot her -- two shots at very close range".

He was about to return to the other soldier but changed his mind, the indictment said.

"He turned around and returned to the place where the girl was lying... and standing as before, he aimed his weapon down and fired, in automatic mode, about 10 bullets until he emptied his magazine."

Tapes of the radio communications on the day of the incident are to be played at the trial.

Rocked by the case and other high-profile allegations of wrongful shootings abuse, army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon warned the army Tuesday against losing its "moral values".

"If we lose the moral high ground, it will undermine our military strength," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a former general, leapt to the defence of the army Wednesday calling it "more moral than any other army I know of".

"We must appreciate that our soldiers are confronted by terrorist assassins," he told reporters in parliament. "I have every confidence in the capacity of the army to stage inquiries if anything goes wrong."

The military announced on Monday it had opened an inquiry into the killing of a Palestinian militant near the West Bank town of Jenin and suspended the special unit members involved in the operation that led to his death.

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