Wire editors see a lot of photographs moving across their desks in the course of a week, but it’s hard to think of a more arresting series than the frames transmitted this week — several of which appeared on our front page yesterday — of Israeli troops rescuing that 16-year-old boy who had been sent with a bomb wrapped around him to attack Israelis and other Palestinian Arabs at a checkpoint. They were a reminder of the extraordinarily humane way that Israel and its army conduct themselves in the war on terror.

Imagine Israeli troops face-to-face with a person loaded with 18 pounds of explosives, one of hundreds of such persons who have sought to get near innocent Israelis in the course of the war launched against the Jewish state by Yasser Arafat and competing Arab factions.

Instead of shooting the youngster dead — which they would have had every right to do in defense of themselves and hundreds of innocent bystanders — they sized up the situation and realized that this was a youngster who didn’t want to die. They responded by maneuvering a robot to deliver to him a pair of scissors so that he could cut off the bomb.

This respect for life is not without its counterpart on the Palestinian Arab side, though it is rarely given a chance by the Palestinian terrorists to prosper. But a newspaper advertisement signed by 60 Palestinian Arabs did appear yesterday. It warned that revenge attacks over the assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin would lead to strong Israeli retaliation and further hurt the Palestinian cause. The ad called on Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest, according to the Associated Press, whose dispatch reports, “The ad reflected growing sentiment among many Palestinian leaders and intellectuals that military struggle is not helping the Palestinian cause.”

The AP further reported that may Palestinian Arabs reacted to the news of the 16-year-old bomber with anger and disgust that children are involved in the conflict. It would be a mistake to make too much of this sentiment among the Palestinian Arabs. The hatred of Israel, the opposition to peace with any Jews, is widespread, fanned and enforced by the Tunis crowd and other terrorists, who terrorize not only Israelis but also other Arabs. But it would be a mistake to make too little of it, too, of the example that Israel set under such dramatic circumstances yesterday, when under the most extraordinary circumstances life was chosen.