Arafat suspected to have leukaemia

1.30pm

UPDATE - Ramallah - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is suspected to be suffering from Leukaemia, a cancer of the blood that can be fatal, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday.

The official, close to the veteran leader, spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. Arafat is due to fly to Paris on Friday for medical treatment.

One of a team of doctors treating Arafat had told reporters earlier that Leukaemia was not thought to be the cause of his illness.

The doctors found that Arafat had an abnormally low count of blood platelets. One cause of that could be Leukaemia.

A senior official from Arafat's Fatah movement, Abbas Zaki, said on Thursday Arafat would be flown out early in the morning.

France accepted a request for him to be treated in a French hospital and will send a plane to collect him, a spokeswoman for the French presidency said.

A thin and weak-looking Arafat, dressed in pyjamas, smiled and joked with medics in the first few seconds of film footage released since his condition worsened drastically on Wednesday. Laughing, he clasped the hands of those around him.

Aides said Palestinian, Tunisian, Jordanian and Egyptian physicians had advised that Arafat, 75, be taken abroad, moving him from the West Bank compound where he has been penned by Israel forces for over 2-1/2 years.

His wife Suha hurried to his bedside for the first time since they were separated by Palestinian-Israeli fighting that erupted after talks foundered in 2000.

The ex-guerrilla, loved by most of his people and reviled by many Israelis, has had stomach pains since last week.

His health took a dramatic turn for the worse on Wednesday and officials said he had been slipping in and out of consciousness, though on Thursday he had also been able to eat, talk and say prayers.

Arafat's slide into illness has raised fears of chaos among Palestinians, whose four-year-old uprising for a state has stalled.

The death of a leader Israel and its United States ally see as an obstacle to peace could also shuffle the cards in the Middle East conflict as the US heads into a presidential election on Tuesday.

Arafat, short, stubble-bearded and usually seen in his trademark black-and-white Arab headdress, has named no successor in the decade since emerging from exile under interim peace accords.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel would allow Arafat to travel anywhere for medical treatment as a humanitarian gesture.

Asked whether it would then permit Arafat to return to the West Bank, Gissin said: "If the doctors will say that he needs to come back after he receives treatment, Israel will not impose any restrictions on that."

Israel had said it could not guarantee Arafat's return if he left Ramallah, but Sharon shifted course after speaking by phone with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie late on Wednesday.

Should Arafat die, speaker of parliament Rawhi Fattouh would replace him as Palestinian Authority president for a 60-day period during which elections would be held.

Arafat's incapacitation or death could raise fresh questions about Sharon's unilateral plan for withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in 2005, a move that has caused political turmoil in the Jewish state.

Sharon has said that with Arafat in power, Israel has no negotiating partner, forcing him to go it alone to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians.

Gissin said it was premature to speculate on the fate of the pullout if Arafat died, but if any new Palestinian leadership met "its obligation to fight terrorism" and institute reforms "we can reconsider our overall disengagement plan".

Israel accuses Arafat of fomenting violence after peace talks collapsed four years ago, an allegation he denies.

At Arafat's compound, his cousin, security chief Mussa Arafat, said the president "ate cornflakes this morning and was able to walk to the bathroom." Other officials said Arafat had managed to say his morning Muslim prayers.

Medical sources said he had been suffering frequent relapses and sometimes appeared dazed and did not recognise those around him. Officials denied Israeli reports he has cancer.

Arafat has for many years suffered from shaking -- symptomatic of Parkinson's disease. Aides, however, have said it was the result of a 1992 plane crash.

Arafat shared a Nobel Peace prize with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, but bloodshed swiftly followed failed peace talks in 2000.

- REUTERS