ARAFAT HAS DIED
It is finally made "official" after securing his burial place.
Afarat is Pronounced Dead, Officials Say
By Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; 11:17 PM
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, 75, has died in a military hospital near Paris, 13 days after he left his shell-battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah for treatment of a still uncertain disorder, Palestinian officials reported.
A spokesman for the Percy Military Training Hospital had told reporters earlier this week that Arafat's condition had deteriorated and he had slipped into a deeper coma. A high-ranking delegation of Palestinian officials visited Paris Wednesday.
Arafat will be buried at his battered headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem, following a state funeral in Cairo, according to Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian officials.
Arafat died as he lived, embroiled in controversy, as aides from the Palestinian Authority feuded with his wife over access to the fading leader while Israeli and Arab politicians traded bitter exchanges over Arafat's reported desire to be buried in Jerusalem.
Palestinians regard Arafat as the father of their nation. Israel officially regards him as a longtime terrorist.
Arafat's death ended more than a week of confused and often conflicting reports about the nature of his illness and his condition. During the course of a week, he was said to be dead on the one hand and doing better on the other.
Arafat was airlifted to the French hospital Oct. 29 from his compound in Ramallah after complaining for two weeks of nausea, stomach cramps and other symptoms. Palestinian officials at first attributed his discomfort to intestinal flu but later conceded his condition was more serious. Doctors have ruled out stomach cancer and leukemia but never issued a definitive diagnosis.
Arafat did not name a successor, and his illness has plunged Palestinians into anxiety over who will take his place if he dies and how the new leadership will prevent an outbreak of violence among armed factions that have struggled for supremacy with each other as well as with the Israeli army.
Two of Arafat's longtime colleagues, Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the former prime minister, have been chosen to run a collective leadership group in an attempt to maintain internal peace.
But their Palestinian Authority is financially broke, politically divided, rife with corruption and largely unable to provide security for its own people.
Even before Arafat's recent illness, top Palestinian officials warned the governing body was in danger of collapse and was unable to contain mounting internal violence and chaos in the Gaza Strip and some West Bank cities. Now, rival factions and interests will intensify the struggle for control of Palestinian institutions. |
