 Palestinian officials prepared for the funeral of their ailing leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday as Israel agreed to allow his burial at his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Mr Arafat, 75, suffered a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday at the French hospital where he was flown from the West Bank on October 29 and had lain in a coma. Officials maintained in public that he was alive, though aides said privately that he was dead.
| "HE'S NOT DEAD, DAMMIT! I WANT MY MONEY!" |
Palestinian sources said Mr Arafat's death could be announced within days and arrangements were being hastily made for a funeral in Cairo and burial at his West Bank headquarters. Earth-moving equipment set to work digging up the grounds of his shell-shattered compound in Ramallah, which was to be turned into a shrine to the icon of Palestinian nationalism. But adding to the confusion, Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, a leading West Bank cleric, told reporters after seeing Mr Arafat at the military hospital in a Paris suburb: "He is sick and his condition is very difficult but he remains alive." "As long as there is a manifestation of life present, from movement to temperature in the body, then he is alive," said Mr Tamimi. |