Palestinians refuse to plan Arafat funeral arrangements

There were conflicting reports on whether Arafat is brain dead or in a reversible coma.

It is not clear whether the Palestinian leader has left a will. However, he has told aides privately that he would like to be buried near Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

The mosque compound is built on the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples and is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. Disputes over control and sovereignty at the hotly disputed site have sparked several rounds of peace talks.

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid reiterated today that Jerusalem is off-limits. “It is clear that he will not be buried in Jerusalem, and that he will not be buried on the Temple Mount,” Lapid told Israel TV’s Channel Two.

Burial in Jerusalem would be seen as strengthening Palestinian claims to the traditionally Arab sector of the city as a future capital.

Israeli security officials said Gaza was the only burial option, and that they opposed allowing Arafat to be buried in the West Bank, including the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

Arafat had spent the last three years in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which became his prison after Israel besieged his compound more than two years ago.

Lapid did not refer to a possible ban on a West Bank burial, but said: “Now we are talking about Gaza. We have no problems with Gaza, of course.”

Arafat’s family, the Al-Kidwas, are originally from Gaza, though the Palestinian leader grew up in Jerusalem and Cairo. The family has a small plot of 25 to 30 graves in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The overgrown patch is in the middle of a busy vegetable market and would not be considered appropriate.

Other burial options include a seaside plot next to his old headquarters in Gaza City, or Gaza City’s “martyrs’ cemetery” east of the city, close to Israel.

A funeral in Gaza would pose a security nightmare for foreign dignitaries. There has been increasing chaos in the coastal strip in recent months, with rival groups of gunmen and security chiefs battling for control ahead of a planned Israeli troop withdrawal next year.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was to hold meetings with Gaza security chiefs later today. Palestinian factions, including the ruling Fatah movement and Islamic militant opposition groups, were to meet later in the day in Gaza to discuss ways of preventing unrest in the event of Arafat’s death.

Israeli officials said they were instructed to prepare for the arrival of foreign envoys for the funeral, but the Palestinians weren’t ready yet to co-operate in the planning.

Israel anticipated receiving envoys from countries with which it has diplomatic relations and providing security for them until they pass into Palestinian-controlled territory, officials said. Envoys from other countries would be likely to arrive across the border from Jordan or Egypt, depending on the location of the grave site.

It was unclear who would attend. Although Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, formed after he returned from exile in 1994, it is not a widely recognised government. The Palestinians have observer status at the United Nations.

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, declined to discuss the level of delegations until the official announcement of Arafat’s death.

Since he was airlifted October 29 to a French military hospital from the West Bank, his condition has largely remained a mystery. French physicians have yet to announce a diagnosis, but did confirm yesterday that he had been rushed to intensive care after his condition became “more complex”.

Shahid suggested the coma occurred after he was put under anaesthesia to have additional medical tests, including an endoscopy, colonoscopy and a biopsy of the spinal cord.

“The doctors don’t have a diagnosis,” she said.

“He could or could not wake up,” she said, adding that ”all vital organs are functioning”.

Doctors have determined Arafat is not suffering from stomach cancer, Shahid said. Earlier this week, a medical statement drafted by the hospital said that initial tests had also ruled out leukaemia. But a clear diagnosis has never been issued.

She spoke shortly after an Israeli Cabinet minister told Israel’s Channel Two television that Arafat was brain dead and being kept “artificially” kept alive. “They will need to decide when to stop it,” Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said.

He was the first senior Israeli official to speak in detail about Arafat’s condition, but the source of his information was not clear.

“I don’t know more than what the whole world knows,” he said.

His assessment was confirmed by Israeli security officials, who spoke anonymously. Israel’s military has declined to comment on Arafat’s condition.

However, Arafat’s personal physician, Dr Ashraf Kurdi, insisted yesterday that a brain scan showed Arafat “has no type of brain death”.

Shahid’s comments echo those of a Palestinian official in Gaza who is close to Arafat’s wife, Suha. He told The Associated Press yesterday that Suha Arafat told him her husband became unconscious after receiving a strong anaesthetic for a biopsy. The official quoted her as saying Arafat was recovering.

Outside the hospital, some 50 well-wishers held a vigil until the early hours of this morning. Some held candles, others Arafat portraits and a large Palestinian flag hung from the hospital’s outer wall.

Brain death occurs when the brain stops working, making it impossible for the body to maintain its own vital functions, such as breathing. It is irreversible. Patients can be kept alive by a machine, as long as the heart is still beating and nothing is seriously wrong with the rest of the body.

French television station LCI quoted an anonymous French medical official as saying Arafat was in an “irreversible coma” and “intubated” – a process that involves threading a tube down the windpipe to the lungs to connect it to a respirator to help the patient breathe.

To be on a respirator, a patient must be unconscious, but not necessarily brain dead or even in a coma.