Arafat suffers liver failure, say officials
PALESTINIAN leader, Yasser Arafat, who has been hovering between life and death in the last few days, got a frightening medical verdict yesterday with doctors diagnosing liver failure in the 75 year-old fighter.
Some aides, in fact said his condition was so bad that he might be moved from the French military hospital where he is currently receiving treatment to Cairo in Egypt where he could be flown home more quickly if he eventually dies.
Yasser Arafat lay critically ill with liver failure yesterday and his condition was getting no better, a Palestinian official said, as their leaders adopted in his absence a plan to restore order in their areas.
"He has liver failure. His condition is not improving," said a Palestinian official in the West Bank who declined to be named. "One option being considered is moving him to Cairo."
The official said any de`cision to move Arafat could be taken only by the Palestinian leadership. He added that a low count of platelets, which help the blood clot, meant blood transfusions were proving difficult.
Doctors have ruled out leukaemia but remain puzzled why Arafat's health deteriorated sharply last week at the Paris hospital, where he has been having tests since he was flown from the West Bank on October 29.
In Ramallah, site of Arafat's headquarters, his fellow leaders decided to carry out a plan to restore law and order in the West Bank and Gaza, a government minister said. It was the first major decision they have announced since Arafat left.
Officials said the plan was drafted in March and is more concerned with ending local lawlessness than reining in militants waging a four-year-old uprising -- a long-standing Israeli and international demand.
Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters the National Security Council decided to "implement a plan to restore the rule of law in the Palestinian territories."
The security plan calls for more security forces to be deployed. Militants will be banned from carrying arms except when confronting Israel and stopped from intervening in local disturbances.
Arafat and other officials often promised action on the security front, with little result. Arafat said the Palestinians were hamstrung by Israel's destruction of their forces during the uprising.
Briefing Israel's cabinet yesterday, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said there were signs that Palestinian leaders were trying to curtail violence.
"There are indications that they are trying to close ranks and stop the Hamas terrorism, but there is no way of knowing if this will succeed," he said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie came under pressure from the armed factions on Saturday to give them decision-making powers in a temporary unified leadership they want if Arafat dies. He did not say he had agreed.
Arafat wants to be buried in Jerusalem's Old City, which is holy both to Moslems and Jews, but Israeli officials refuse to let him lie in land which Israel calls part of its indivisible capital and which it annexed after the 1967 war. Israel wants him buried in the Gaza Strip.
"The defence establishment has completed preparations for an Arafat funeral in Gaza," political sources quoted Mofaz as telling cabinet meeting yesterday.
"The moment we receive a Palestinian Authority request on the matter, we will implement final preparations. We still await a formal announcement of Arafat's death."
Israel allowed the Palestinian leader to be flown from the West Bank to France and returning him to Gaza would require similar permission.
Meanwhile, Palestinians are planning for a smooth transfer of power in the event of Yasser Arafat's death at a series of high-level political and security meetings.
Health bulletins from France, where Arafat has been treated for the last nine days, said the 75-year-old remained in a coma although his position was stable.
While Arafat lies in intensive care in the Percy military hospital on the southwestern outskirts of Paris, his former Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas and current premier Ahmed Qorei have assumed control of the major Palestinian institutions.
Qorei, who is at the helm of the Palestinian Authority in Arafat's absence, was to chair a meeting of the National Security Council before a meeting of the dominant Fatah faction, presided over by Abbas, officials said.
The two men were then expected to join a meeting with leaders of other factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in the evening.
The militant Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not attend the evening meeting but Qorei held talks with representatives of both factions in the Gaza Strip on Saturday where all parties agreed on the need for a united front if Arafat fails to recover.
"Taking up arms is not a solution," Qorei told a press conference after Saturday's meeting. "Any domestic problem must be solved by national dialogue. This is the only way."
Hamas, which has so far resisted pressure from Qorei to halt their campaign of anti-Israeli attacks, said there was a consensus on the need to maintain a united front.
"We told the prime minister that we want to preserve Palestinian unity and that we will hold dialogue to resolve all conflicts," Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, told reporters. "No one wants to take up arms."
Abbas is emerging as the chief player in the Palestinian fold while Arafat hovers between life and death.
If Abbas can cement his control, it could galvanise the moribund Middle East peace process. While Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush have snubbed Arafat, Abbas was a guest of both men during his brief tenure as Prime Minister last year.
Abbas on Saturday chaired a meeting of the PLO's executive committee, which members sent congratulations to Bush for his re-election and expressed their desire to work with him towards the implementation of the roadmap peace plan, which targets the creation of an independent Palestinian state next year.
Sharon has already vowed that he will not accede to his old enemy's desire to be buried in Jerusalem and would rather see him laid to rest in the Gaza Strip.
Such a move would be seen as a major humiliation for Arafat who has been at the forefront of the struggle for a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital, for the best part of half a century. `
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