TEL AVIV, June 28: Israeli and Palestinian officials were up in arms on Friday over the picture of a Palestinian baby “suicide bomber” that the Israeli army said it found in the home of a wanted guerilla in Al Khalil.

The picture released by the Israeli army shows a toddler dressed as a “suicide bomber”, with a fake explosives belt strapped around its body. The army said it found the photo while searching the house of the wanted man, whose name was not released.

The authenticity of the picture could not be verified, but its publication in Israeli newspapers triggered a war of words between Israel and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

“This picture is real,” Dore Gold, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said.

“The picture symbolizes the hatred and incitement which the Palestinian leadership has been feeding a whole generation of Palestinian youths who have, unfortunately, taken it in like their mothers’ milk,” Gold said.

However, chief Palestinian negotiator and cabinet minister Saeb Erakat dismissed the picture as a pack of “lies”.

“These are lies that they use to cover their own crimes, the murder of our children,” Erakat said. “This week alone, six children were killed at the hands of Israeli forces,” he said.—AFP