Israel: No burial in Jerusalem

2004-11-05 11:42

Jerusalem - Israel will permit Yasser Arafat to be buried in the Gaza Strip, but not in Jerusalem, an Israeli cabinet minister said on Friday, as the Palestinian leader lay gravely ill in a Paris hospital.

Palestinian officials have refused to begin planning for his funeral or co-ordinate with Israel on the movement of attending foreign dignitaries as long as his condition remains unclear, officials said.

There were conflicting reports on Friday on whether Arafat is brain dead or in a reversible coma.

It isn't clear whether the Palestinian leader has left a will. However, he has told aides privately that he would like to be buried near Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

Security nightmare

The mosqe compound is built on the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples and is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. Disputes over control and sovereignty at the hotly disputed site have scuttled several rounds of peace talks.

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid reiterated on Friday that Jerusalem is off-limits. "It is clear that he will not be buried in Jerusalem, and that he will not be buried on the Temple Mount," Lapid told Israel TV's Channel Two.

Burial in Jerusalem would be seen as strengthening Palestinian claims to the traditionally Arab sector of the city as a future capital.

Israeli security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Gaza was the only burial option, and that they opposed allowing Arafat to be interred in the West Bank, including the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis.

Arafat had spent the last three years in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which became his prison after Israel besieged his compound more than two years ago.

Arafat's clan, the Al-Kidwas, are originally from Gaza, though the Palestinian leader grew up in Jerusalem and Cairo. The family has a small plot of 25 to 30 graves in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The overgrown patch is in the middle of a busy vegetable market and would not be considered appropriate.

Other burial options include a seaside plot next to his old headquarters in Gaza City, or Gaza City's "martyr's cemetery" east of the city, close to Israel.

A funeral in Gaza would pose a security nightmare for foreign dignitaries. There has been increasing chaos in the coastal strip in recent months, with rival groups of gunmen and security chiefs battling for control ahead of a planned Israeli troop withdrawal next year.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was to hold meetings with Gaza security chiefs later Friday. Palestinian factions, including the ruling Fatah movement and Islamic militant opposition groups, were to meet later in the day in Gaza to discuss ways of preventing unrest in the event of Arafat's death.

- Dow Jones