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| Saturday, 6 November 2004 |
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Arafat "between life and death" PARIS, Friday (Reuters) Yasser Arafat is in a critical condition between life and death, a senior Palestinian official said on Friday, and some of the Palestinian president's powers have been transferred to his prime minister. The 75-year-old leader - symbol for decades of the Palestinian struggle against Israel for a state - was in an intensive care unit at a French military hospital, but the exact nature of his illness remained unclear. "Today (Friday) we can say that Yasser Arafat in his state of health and at his age is at a critical juncture between life and death," Leila Shahid, the permanent Palestinian envoy to Paris, told French RTL radio. She said Arafat was in a coma. CNN quoted U.S. officials as saying Arafat was on a life support machine, but no independent confirmation was available. It said French, Egyptian, Palestinian and Israeli officials were involved in possible burial arrangements. A small group of Arafat supporters spent the night in front of the hospital in the southwest Paris surburb of Clamart, holding Palestinian flags and keeping dozens of candles alight on the pavement. French President Jacques Chirac visited Arafat on Thursday afternoon. Palestinians locked in a 4-year-old uprising against Israel were fearful his death could trigger a power vacuum and chaos. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians were glued to radio and television broadcasts. "Dear God protect our leader, Dear God protect our father," chanted gunmen from Arafat's Fatah faction, firing shots in the air as they joined crowds in Gaza's streets. Security had been boosted at Jewish settlements in the West Bank for fear of mass violence against them, Israeli TV said. A senior Palestinian official said Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, a leading moderate, had taken over some of Arafat's powers for security and financing. Palestinian security services held an emergency meeting late on Thursday at Arafat's shell-battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, security sources said. U.S. President George W. Bush, responding to reports on Thursday that Arafat had died, said: "God bless his soul." |
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