Palestinian officials rushed to deny claims on Tuesday that veteran leader Yasser Arafat has lost his battle for life at a French hospital, as talks with Israel on his funeral were set to begin.
A Cabinet minister and a senior official in France had said that Arafat had died at the Percy military hospital in the Paris suburb of Clamart where he has been in a coma since the middle of last week.
“For sure he is dead,” said the minister, who spoke in Ramallah on condition of anonymity at about 2.30pm GMT. “It’s a question of how and when to announce it. It [an announcement] will be most likely made tonight.”
The source in Paris also said that it was “just a matter of hours before they make an official announcement”, adding that Arafat’s most senior lieutenants have been seen giving their condolences to his wife, Suha, as well as consoling each other.
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) Mahmud Abbas, Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath and the parliamentary speaker had all gone to Paris to see Arafat.
But the source said only Qureia had actually visited Arafat at his bedside.
“Abu Alaa fainted when he saw the rais [Arafat],” the source added.
However, Shaath, talking to journalists in Paris, insisted that the 75-year-old Arafat was still alive, giving a lengthy account of his condition.
“Now the president is very much alive and his body is resisting,” Shaath told a press conference, adding that doctors have ruled out that he is suffering from cancer or poisoning.
Shaath also poured scorn on any notions that any life support machines used to keep Arafat alive will be unplugged.
He said Arafat, who has led the Palestinian struggle for statehood for the past 40 years, has undergone a barrage of tests to determine what is wrong with him, and has been heavily sedated so he will feel no pain.
During his three-year siege in his Ramallah headquarters at the hands of the Israeli army, Arafat had been suffering from “a variety of digestive tract ailments”, Shaath said.
“So he had serious inflammations of the stomach and the intestines … along with a period without nutrition, and this led to deterioration in the situation of the blood chemistry and the blood composition.”
At a press conference in Ramallah, Negotiations Minister Saeb Erakat also denied that Arafat has died.
Struggling to fight back tears, he said that Arafat has been suffering from a severe brain haemorrhage.
“All efforts are being made by our friends the French doctors to relieve this haemorrhaging,” Erakat said at the press conference, translating into English an announcement by the head of Arafat’s office, Tayeb Abdelrahim.
Abdelrahim also said that, in the event of his death, Arafat will be buried at his Muqataa headquarters in Ramallah where he had been a virtual prisoner of Israel before his dramatic airlift to France on October 29.
“In case the worst will happen, all arrangements will take place at the Muqataa,” Abelrahim said.
The Palestinian official in France had said that no official announcement on Arafat’s death will be made until funeral arrangements have been finalised with the Israeli authorities.
A senior Israeli official later said discussions on the funeral arrangements will begin overnight.
“The first contacts should take place in the night with the aim of reaching an agreement on the organisation of the funeral for Yasser Arafat,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
No official announcement on Arafat’s eventual death will be made until “an agreement is reached on his burial”, the source added.
Amid the confusion, a joint emergency meeting of the PLO executive committee and the central committee of Arafat’s Fatah faction was convened in Ramallah.
Leaders of the various Palestinian factions also gathered for an emergency meeting in Gaza City to discuss arrangements for an official announcement of his death, said a leader of the radical Islamic Jihad organisation, Khaled al Batsh.
Palestinian television played clips of Arafat throughout the evening but in Ramallah, the shops were packed with people who were going about their business as usual.
Egypt offers to host funeral
Meanwhile, Egypt is offering to host a funeral service for Arafat in Cairo, a Palestinian official said on Tuesday.
An Egyptian envoy arrived at Arafat’s West Bank headquarters late on Tuesday with the proposal, said Ahmed Subah, the Deputy Information Minister.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered to hold the service for Arafat at the Arab League in Cairo, ahead of burial in Ramallah, said Subah.
Subah said Palestinian leaders will make a decision on the offer on Wednesday morning. — Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP
Arafat not dead, despite rumours