The picture of a tank on the front page of today´s Italian edition appeared with the headline «Inner Silence of the Holy Days Lacerated by the Clash of Arms.»
«The land in which the passion, death and resurrection of Christ reconciled humanity with God and restored the dimension of authentic peace, is fiercely stricken today by the instruments that hatred has given to violence,» the semiofficial Vatican newspaper reported.
The picture of the Israeli tank was taken in front of the general headquarters of Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority. The headquarters were attacked on Good Friday, after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon officially declared Arafat an «enemy.»
About the same time, a Palestinian woman suicide bomber attacked a supermarket in Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and wounding 20 others, officials reported.
On Wednesday, 21 people died and 124 were wounded in a suicide-bombing attack on a lodge in Netanya. Recalling these and other attacks claimed by Palestinian organizations, Sharon justified the reprisal, saying: «No other country in the world would have tolerated a series of attacks of this kind.»
The Israeli military operations are the most intense in the 18-month-long Palestinian uprising, and the greatest threat to Arafat´s power since his return from exile to the West Bank in 1994.
