Arafat 'in the final phase of his life'
A senior Islamic cleric rushed to Yasser Arafat’s hospital bedside in Paris today to be with him in the “final phase” of his life, a spokeswoman for the Palestinian leader said.
But Palestinian envoy to France Leila Shahid said Taissir Dayut Tamimi was not coming ”to disconnect” Arafat from life support.
“It is clear, as for a Christian, as for a Jew, that a religious man needs to be with his patient when he is in the final phase of his life,” Shahid said. “That is why he is here.”
Doctors said yesterday that Arafat’s coma had deepened and his caretaker government chose a burial site and began preparing for a funeral.
Shahid said Arafat he was still “in a deep coma” this morning, but added there was a ”complication in the state of all of his vital organs”.
She said he was therefore “in a critical state".
“The reality is that he is in the hands of God.”
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said doctors were trying to relieve bleeding from a severe brain haemorrhage, which can cause brain damage.
French doctors told Palestinian officials that this kind of bleeding meant that Arafat’s death was expected within 24 hours – a period that has passed.
Shahid said doctors at the Percy Military Hospital were fighting to keep him alive. They ”are doing everything, in the intensive care unit, to try to give him his chances”, she said.
Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, decided that when the time comes, they would bury Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters, known as the Muqata, in Ramallah, and turn it into a shrine, defusing a potential conflict with Israel by dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met security chiefs today and then convened his security cabinet to officially decide on the government’s position.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that the cabinet decided in principle that Arafat could be buried in Ramallah. The radio said the cabinet was still discussing security arrangements and other operational matters, but that burying Arafat at his headquarters in Ramallah would be acceptable.
Egypt offered to host the main funeral in Cairo – a site less problematic for foreign dignitaries – before a Ramallah burial.
The central committee of Arafat’s Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee were also taking up that and other questions, including Arafat’s succession, today.
“Many issues related to Arafat’s burial, if he dies, have to be discussed,” said Abbas Zaki, a Fatah central committee member.
