[font=arial][font=Verdana][font=Arial]Just before the local gloating scum break this story, i thought i would post it first. RIP Mr Arafat. May God help us all now. [/font][/font][/font]
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[font=arial][font=Verdana][font=Arial]Palestinians mourn Arafat's death[/font]
[font=Geneva]Agencies
Thursday November 11, 2004
[/font][font=Geneva]Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian people for the last three decades, died early this morning in a Paris hospital.
Flags lowered to half mast across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as word spread that the 75-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority had died after falling into a coma one week ago.
"Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, died at the military hospital Percy, Clamart on November 11, 2004, at 3.30 (0230 GMT)," Christian Estripeau, chief doctor and hospital spokesman, announced at the hospital in the Paris suburb of Clamart.
Mr Arafat had been flown to the French hospital on October 29, before suffering a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday. Doctors have not released the exact cause of death.
Mr Arafat's body will be flown to Cairo for a ceremony on Friday and then to the West Bank city of Ramallah for burial on Saturday.
An aide to Mr Arafat, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, was near tears as he announced the death in Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority declared a 40-day mourning period in the West Bank and Gaza, where mosque loudspeakers blared the announcement along with verses from the Koran.
There was no sorrow, though, among Israeli officials. "I hated him, not personally, but a deep hatred for a man who made terrorism a method in the world," the justice minister, Yosef Lapid, told Israel radio. The prime minister, Tony Blair, released a statement on learning of his death: "I would like to express my condolences to the family of President Arafat and to the Palestinian people. President Arafat came to symbolise the Palestinian national movement. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, jointly with Yitzhak Rubin, in recognition of their efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
He led his people to an historic acceptance of the need for a two-state solution. That goal of a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel is one that we must continue to work tirelessly to achieve. Peace in the Middle East must be the international community's highest priority.
"We will do whatever we can working with the US and EU to help the parties reach a fair and durable settlement," he said.
Mr Arafat had wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, but Israel vetoed that idea. Both the Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their capital. Instead, Mr Arafat will be buried in his Ramallah compound, or Muqata, to which he had been confined by Israel for nearly three years. Aides said today that he would be buried in a stone coffin, not a wooden one, to allow his re-interment at a later time in Jerusalem. "The final resting place will be the Al Aqsa Mosque," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat. "One of these days, we will have a Palestinian state, and President Arafat will be laid to rest (in Jerusalem)."
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