Arafat said to have liver failure, PM to visit

1.00pm

PARIS - Yasser Arafat, critically ill in a Paris hospital, has suffered liver failure, a Palestinian official said on Sunday as three top Palestinian leaders prepared to fly to France to be at his bedside.

Looking ahead to life without the 75-year-old Arafat, his subordinates in the West Bank decided to carry out a plan to restore law and order to the Palestinian territories. It was the first major decision they had announced since Arafat left.

"He has liver failure. His condition is not improving," a Palestinian official in the West Bank said.

Palestine Liberation Organisation Secretary General Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath planned to see Arafat on Monday, the Palestinian Authority said, denying Arab media reports that his condition had worsened.

Abbas and Qurie, overseeing Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza since Arafat was flown to a French military hospital on Oct. 29, decided to go to France to be "personally reassured" about his condition, a Palestinian official said.

Israeli commentators described the visit as a symbolic show of steady leadership by two members of Arafat's "old guard" and a necessary precursor to any announcement of his death.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, speaking on LCI television, described Arafat's condition as "very complex, very serious and stable at the time we are speaking."

Addressing the delicate issue of where Arafat should be buried if he dies, Israel said it had completed preparations for his eventual burial in the Gaza Strip.

Arafat wants to be buried in Jerusalem's Old City, which is holy both to Muslims and Jews. But Israel refuses to let Arafat, a symbol of Palestinian hopes for statehood, lie in annexed land it calls part of its indivisible capital.

Doctors treating Arafat have ruled out leukemia but remain puzzled as to why his health deteriorated sharply last week.

"The organs in the lower part of Arafat's body have not been functioning well. However, his heart and brain are working still," a Palestinian official in Paris said.

- REUTERS