Arafat: Funeral plans speed up
2004-11-10 19:18
Clamart - With Yasser Arafat in what an aide called "the final phase of his life," the Palestinian leader's political heirs completed burial arrangements on Wednesday and decided on a temporary presidential successor.
An Islamic cleric read from the Qu'ran, the Muslim holy book, at the bedside of the 75-year-old symbol of the Palestinian cause, who was in a deep coma, on life support, with bleeding in the brain and problems with other vital organs, Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian leaders accepted an offer from Egypt to host the main funeral in Cairo - a site less problematic for foreign dignitaries - before Arafat is buried at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Bulldozers pushed aside rubble and hauled away piles of wrecked cars to prepare the compound for his burial.
"It was decided that the body will be brought to Cairo and there will lie in state," Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat told The Associated Press.
"After that, the body will be flown from Cairo to Ramallah."
A French hospital spokesperson, Christian Estripeau, told the newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday morning that Arafat's death "could be a question of hours, or, perhaps, days".
After his death, Palestinian parliament speaker Rauhi Fattouh will become temporary president of the Palestinian Authority, top officials from the Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation and Fatah movement decided.
Under Palestinian law, the speaker would be president for 60
The decision, meanwhile, by Palestinian leaders to bury Arafat at Ramallah defused a potential conflict with Israel by dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial.
Palestinians see Arafat's Ramallah headquarters - his virtual prison for the last three years - as a symbol of his resistance.
Burial there is less politically sensitive for Israel.
Israeli interior minister Avraham Poraz said Israel would permit a "respectful" funeral and be careful not to "upset" Palestinian feelings.
He told Army Radio that the Palestinian Authority would be in charge of security and Israeli forces would remain on the sidelines unless there was unrest, such as an attempted march on Jerusalem.
Israel will permit Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians to attend, Poraz said, but only a small group VIPs from the Gaza Strip will be able to go.
Tamimi, the cleric who heads the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said Islam prohibits Arafat's life support from being switched off.
"It is absolutely rejected," he said. "As long as there are signs of life in the body of the president, he will remain under treatment."
He said he read passages from the Qu'ran and "prayed to God for his recovery" during more than an hour at his bedside.
- AP