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Torn posters of Yasser Arafat (AP)
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| By israelinsider staff November 5, 2004 |
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Medical sources and Israeli officials say that Yasser Arafat is "brain dead," hooked to life support, with no chance of emerging from the coma into which he slipped Wednesday night. The only question, they say, is when family or doctors decide to "unplug him."
Interviewed on Israel TV?s Channel Two, Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid said: "I don?t know more than what the whole world knows. It is clear now that he is brain dead, clinically dead, and they are keeping him alive artificially. They will need to decide when to stop it."
Palestinians, however, seem to be stuck in a state of denial and confusion.
"Arafat is in critical state between life and death," Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to Paris said on Friday morning. "Arafat is unconscious and has undergone a general systems collapse," a high-level Palestinian official told Haaretz Thursday night. "He is being aided by respiratory machines and his condition appears irreversible, but reports of his death are not true."
However, Shahid told another news source that Yasser Arafat is in a "reversible coma" but not brain dead. "I can assure that there is no brain death," Shahid told French RTL radio. "He is in a coma, we don't know the type but it's a reversible coma."
She denied "categorically" reports in French and Israeli media that he was brain dead and being kept alive on life support.
Shahid in previous days had been reporting on Arafat's steadily improving condition.
Arafat confidant Muhammad Rashid went so far as to say that Arafat "has never lost consciousness, not even partially."
Rashid, who is a key figure in Palestinian Authority financial affairs, may be taking this line to maintain the possibility that "Arafat," or someone acting in his name, will execute the signatory powers to move the reported billions of dollars in secret accounts over which Arafat alone had signing authority.
Report of his death slightly exaggerated?
Israeli Channel Two television Thursday night cited Israeli security officials as saying they had been told by a reliable French source that Arafat had died.
Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the PA leader's condition had seriously deteriorated Wednesday night, when he slipped into a coma. He was rushed into intensive care at the French military hospital where he has been undergoing treatment for a week. He later fell into a coma.
Sources at the French military hospital where Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has been receiving treatment on Thursday denied reports that the 75-year-old Arafat has died, but described his medical state as "complex."
"Mr. Arafat is not dead," Christian Estripeau, a spokesman for the Percy Military Training Hospital in Clamart outside Paris, told a news conference in a brief statement.
"The clinical situation following the first days after his admission has become more complicated. The state of health of the patient requires appropriate treatment which necessitated his transfer during the afternoon of Wednesday, November 3, to a unit suitable for his condition," Estripeau said.
Apparently he was not referring to the hospital morgue, but a ward for comatose patients on life support.
In Israel, the media, citing Israeli intelligence officials, said Arafat suffered organ failure and that he had lost consciousness several times. The Maariv daily said Arafat's condition was "very critical." Thursday papers reported "clinical death" in their headlines.
Earlier Thursday evening, French media outlets Proche Orient Info, a newspaper covering the Middle East, and Radio Monte-Carlo, reported that Yasser Arafat had been taken off a life support machine by his doctors on Thursday evening at about 5:30 p.m.
However, at a press conference the spokesperson for the Percy Military Hospital held at 6:30 p.m. said Arafat was not dead, but did not give his condition.
"Mr. Arafat is not dead," Christian Estripeau told a news conference in a brief statement that lasted three minutes.
However, Le Monde, the Parisian newspaper, said that Arafat was in fact clinically dead but that Suha Arafat, Yasser's wife, had requested that the announcement not be made at this time.
Arafat's death, whether "clinical" or "actual," occurs nine years to the day after the assassination of slain Israeli Prime Mininster Yitzhak Rabin.
Turning over a new leaf
Israeli leaders and security forces braced Thursday for the possibility that Yasser Arafat's death might be near.
Top Israeli security officials were meeting Thursday to discuss Arafat's deteriorating health and how his possible death would affect the Middle East, officials said.
The security authorities, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and army chief Moshe Ya'alon, were to focus their weekly meeting on reports that Arafat's health had taken a sudden turn for the worse, officials said.
Unnamed Israeli security sources were quoted as telling the Associated Press that the Israeli military had been placed on high alert, and was monitoring developments closely, although no troops had been moved.
The army has a contingency plan, called "New Leaf," to deal with the fallout from Arafat's death, including possible Palestinian rioting.
French doctors in the dark
French doctors still don't know the cause of the blood and digestive disorders uncovered over the past few days, the Palestinian officials said, adding that Arafat was undergoing additional tests.
French hospital and military officials refused to comment, but more information was expected from a previously planned news conference Thursday afternoon.
Israel Radio reported that Mahmoud Abbas, No. 2 in the hierarchy of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization and his first prime minister, was on his way Thursday morning to Paris to see him.
Yet Arafat's top aides denied there had been any setback and accused Israel of spreading rumors. The report first aired on Israel's Channel Two television.
"These unfounded reports are not coming from French medical teams, these are leaks from the Israeli side," said Mohammed Dahlan, a former Palestinian security chief.
"Leaking such rumors will only complicate things and also complicate the situation within the Palestinian public," he told reporters in Paris.
Arafat, who has been ill for three weeks, was flown to the French military hospital on Friday after passing out briefly at his west Bank headquarters.
Palestinian officials insist publicly leukemia and other forms of cancer, as well as any type of poisoning, have been ruled out.
Undoubtedly conscious of the anxiety back home at the thought of a future without Arafat -- who has led the Palestinians for 40 years with no obvious successor -- they had previously described his condition as improving and said more tests were being done.
Khaled Salem, Arafat's top aide, said early Thursday that the medical analysis was "deepening a little bit" but he remained confident Arafat would recover.
"There are no setbacks," he told reporters outside the hospital. "It's no secret he's ill, that's why he's in France, but there is no threat, there is no danger, no serious degradation."
However, top Israeli security officials were meeting Thursday to study the repercussions in the Middle East should Arafat die, Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The security officials, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Army Chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, were to focus their weekly meeting on the reports that Arafat's health took a sudden turn for the worse, the officials said.
Speculation in Israel has ranged from a viral infection to stomach cancer.
His brother, Fathi Arafat, has had stomach cancer for four years and is currently hospitalized in Cairo, Egypt, with an advanced stage, according to doctors there.
On Tuesday, one source who said he had been briefed on the Palestinian leader's status told The Associated Press that his condition was "fatal" _ but he gave no further details and the claim could not be confirmed.
On Wednesday, Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France who has been serving as Arafat's official spokeswoman in Paris, said Arafat felt well enough to ask about the U.S. presidential election. An aide later issued a statement in Arafat's name congratulating George W. Bush on his re-election.
Efforts early Thursday to reach Shahid were unsuccessful.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Israel is tracking Arafat's health "very carefully.
"Our goal is to prepare for the day after, if and when he dies," he told Israel Radio.
Israeli intelligence was widely criticized after it was caught off guard last week by the sudden deterioration in Arafat's health.
Shalom said his condition "is very serious," but gave no details. At the same time, he said, "it is too soon to eulogize Yasser Arafat."
That assessment may now need to be revised.
Bush: "God bless his soul."
President George W. Bush, amid conflicting reports that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had died, said Thursday, "God bless his soul."
During a news conference two days after his re-election, Bush was asked about reports that Luxembourg's prime minister announced that Arafat had died.
"My first reaction is God bless his soul," the president said. "My second reaction is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel."
At the time Bush spoke, there were conflicting reports over whether Arafat, who was seriously ill at a hospital near Paris, had died.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters in Belgium on Thursday that Arafat was dead. Palestinian officials, as well as the head of communications for French military health services, denied that report and insisted Arafat was alive.
Juncker later retracted his statement through a spokesman.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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