Palestinians seek end to Arafat turmoil

PARIS - Palestinians were last night looking to their leadership to lift confusion over Yasser Arafat's fate in a French hospital as preparations gathered pace for a suitable funeral.

Mr Arafat, 75, suffered a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday at a Paris hospital. Officials insisted in public that he was alive, though aides said privately he was dead.

Palestinian sources said leaders were awaiting a senior Muslim cleric to give the go-ahead to disconnect life-support machines at the hospital.

"Is he dead or not dead?" said Ali Zaituna in the Gaza Strip. "We will only believe it when a Palestinian official appears and says it."


The delegation of three senior leaders returned to the West Bank from Paris yesterday amid expectations they might make an announcement on Mr Arafat's condition and their plans for the future.

Officials said it was likely a funeral would be held in Cairo followed by a burial in Ramallah at the compound where Mr Arafat had been confined by Israel for 2 1/2 years.

After ruling out the burial Mr Arafat wanted in the holy city of Jerusalem, Israeli officials had indicated they would allow him to be interred only in the fenced-in Gaza Strip.

But Deputy Internal Security Minister Yaacov Edri signalled that Israel might lift objections to Ramallah.


"This is, after all, a very extraordinary and unique funeral, and we will have to conduct ourselves like a responsible Government," Edri told Army Radio.

- REUTERS