Palestinian leader's condition 'very serious'

5.30pm - By MOHAMMED ASSADI

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is "very, very sick" and the ex-guerrilla who for decades has symbolised a struggle for statehood is slipping in and out of consciousness, say officials and medics.

President Arafat, 75, beloved by most of his people and reviled by many Israelis, has suffered stomach pains since last week but took a dramatic turn for the worse today. A team of foreign doctors is due to carry out tests tomorrow.

Arafat's slide into illness has raised fears of chaos among his people, whose struggle for a state in the West Bank and Gaza is stalled after a 4-year-old uprising.

The short, stubble-bearded Palestinian icon, usually seen in his trademark black and white Arab headdress, has named no successor in the decade since leaving exile under interim peace accords for which he shared a Nobel peace prize.

Palestinian leaders rushed with medics to the battered compound where Arafat has been effectively penned by Israeli forces for more than two years, accused by Israel of fomenting violence after peace talks collapsed. Arafat denies the charge.

Medical sources said Arafat suffered spells of unconsciousness and at other times appeared dazed and disoriented. He was unable to eat or drink without vomiting and was hooked up to an intravenous drip, officials said.

"He is really in a very, very serious condition, though we cannot say he is dying," said one senior official.

Contingency plans have been made to shift Arafat to a hospital for treatment if need be before teams of US, Egyptian and Jordanian doctors arrive later in the day.

After visiting Arafat at the compound, where hundreds of Palestinians gathered, cabinet minister Azzam al-Ahmad said: "He is in a stable condition, but there is no improvement. He was joking with us. He needs more medication and tests."

One confidant said Arafat preferred treatment at his shell-battered "Muqata" compound to either a Palestinian or foreign hospital. He feared Israel would never allow him to return.

Israeli officials said they would let Arafat seek treatment wherever he wanted at home or abroad, but the question of his return was "a separate issue after he recuperates".

Palestinian officials repeatedly said in the past few days that the former guerrilla leader was recovering from a bout of "stomach flu." But he has not appeared in public for days, stirring speculation about the gravity of his condition.

Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie and his predecessor Mahmud Abbas, old comrades of decades of fighting for a state, were summoned to Arafat's headquarters. They made no comment as they left.

Arafat's spokesman denied an al Jazeera report that the president had appointed a three-man committee to act in his absence.

In a sign of how serious Arafat's condition was, his wife, Suha, was expected in Ramallah from her Paris home for the first time since the Palestinian uprising erupted.

Arafat underwent a minor diagnostic procedure on Monday and Palestinian officials said an endoscopy found no serious ailment. They said he did not have stomach cancer.

A senior official in President Bush's administration said the White House was monitoring reports on Arafat's health but had no further comment.

Arafat returned to territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war following 1993 interim peace accords, signed on the White House lawn, that gave Palestinians a first measure of self-rule.

Arafat shared a Nobel Peace prize with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, but peace talks on a final agreement for a Palestinian state collapsed in 2000. Bloodshed followed swiftly.

Both Israel and the United States now refuse to deal with him over the accusations of encouraging militant attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has drawn up a unilateral plan for withdrawing from Gaza and parts of the West Bank -- bypassing a violence-stymied US-backed peace "road map" that would have led to a Palestinian state.

Arafat has not come up with a counter-proposal to the plan, which Palestinians fear could be aimed at denying them indefinitely the viable country they seek.

- REUTERS