Palestinians reacted with tears and tributes to news of the death of their leader, Yasser Arafat, on Thursday.
Palestinian flags at Arafat’s battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah were lowered to half-mast. Television broadcast excerpts from the Qur’an with a picture of Arafat in the background.
In the Gaza Strip, mosques blared Qur’anic verses and children burned tires on the main streets, covering the skies in black smoke. People pasted posters of Arafat on building walls.
”He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God, but he is still among this great people,” said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who broke into tears as he announced Arafat’s death.
Arafat, who led the Palestinian people through four decades, died at a Paris hospital early on Thursday. He had been in a coma for a week.
”We will follow in your footsteps and we will continue in your line,” Abdel Rahim told reporters at Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was ”deeply moved” by the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who ”symbolised … the national aspirations of the Palestinian people”, Annan’s spokesperson said in a statement. The passing away of Arafat, Annan said, must intensify the search for peace in the Middle East.
Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Arafat’s main political rivals, expressed sorrow and paid tribute.
Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas’s spokesperson in Gaza, called on the group’s supporters to honour Arafat and work toward national unity.
”We lost by his death one of our great symbols and one of the main focuses of our national struggle and identity,” said Abu Zuhri.
Islamic Jihad spokesperson in Gaza Nafez Azzam said ”with hearts full of belief in God’s will we mourn President Yasser Arafat who was a great leader for the Palestinian people”.
Speaker to be sworn in
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Parliament speaker will be sworn in as Palestinian Authority president in the coming hours, a Palestinian Cabinet minister said on Thursday morning.
Palestinian officials have said they want to ensure a smooth transition. Under Palestinian law, Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh, a virtual unknown, is to become caretaker president until elections are held in 60 days.
”We can be certain transition will be smooth, and the Palestinian people deserve to have free and fair elections,” said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.
He urged the United States to ensure that elections can he be held. In the past, Palestinian officials have said they cannot organise a vote until Israeli troops withdraw from West Bank towns and cities they reoccupied in a major military offensive in 2002.
Erekat said he expected Fattouh to be sworn into office in the coming hours, but did not have details on the arrangements.
Arafat held three top jobs — president of the Palestinian Authority, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and leader of the ruling Fatah movement. The PLO’s number two, Mahmoud Abbas, is the top contender for taking Arafat’s place as Palestinian leader.
Immediately after Arafat’s burial, the 18-member PLO executive committee is to decide on a new PLO chief.
It is believed Abbas will win the vote, thus becoming Arafat’s successor, at least in the interim. Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, has been acting has caretaker leader, along with Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.
Fattouh (55) grew up in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza. He left Gaza for studies abroad in the 1960s, joined Fatah in 1968 and returned from exile in 1994, along with Arafat and other Palestinian officials.
In the first Palestinian general elections in 1996, he was elected to the Parliament on a Fatah slate. In 2003, he was appointed agriculture minister, and a year later was chosen as speaker, replacing Qureia who became prime minister.
Fattouh is a mid-level Fatah activist, and did not rise to prominence in Parliament. He was chosen as speaker as a compromise candidate.
Burial site prepared
Bulldozers began clearing a site for Arafat’s burial on Wednesday inside the Ramallah compound that was effectively his prison for the past two years.
Under pressure from the US, Ariel Sharon’s security Cabinet approved Arafat’s burial at the Palestinian Authority’s Ramallah headquarters after refusing a request for him to be laid to rest in Jerusalem’s old city.
Israel had wanted Arafat buried in a Gaza refugee camp, but that was rejected as an attempt to diminish his significance.
Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, the Muqataa, has great symbolism as a place of resistance after the Palestinian leader endured months of siege under Israeli guns and more than two years of confinement there.
Avraham Poraz, Israel’s Interior Minister, said the government will permit Palestinians from across the West Bank and a small delegation from the Gaza Strip to attend the funeral.
”We have no desire to provoke the Palestinian street or the Arab world, or the rest of the world,” Poraz said. ”So when the man dies, we have to allow them to mourn him. In their eyes he’s a hero.”
An Israel official said the government has been impressed with the calm of the past few days in the occupied territories and the dignity with which the Palestinian leadership has conducted itself.
US President George Bush said on Wednesday night that a new leadership could provide a fresh impetus for peace.
”I think we’ve got a chance,” he said.
The head of the Islamic court in the Palestinian territories, Sheikh Taissir Dayut Tamimi, sat at Arafat’s bedside reading Qur’anic verses on Wednesday in the Paris hospital where he was evacuated last week.
Mystery had surrounded Arafat’s diagnosis, but the Palestinian Foreign Minister, Nabil Shaath, said his brain had only been partly functioning following a haemorrhage.
Among those expected to attend the funeral are world leaders including former US president Bill Clinton, French president Jacques Chirac, and Nelson Mandela, if he is able.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday that he will also attend. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will represent Britain. — Guardian Unlimited Â