Hospitalization and death of Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat (ياسرعرفات), born the August 24th 1929 and deceased the November 11th 2004 with Clamart, in France, was a Palestinian politician , President of the Palestinian Autorité of 1994 to its death.

Aggravation of its state

October 23rd, 2004 and with the agreement of Israel, a team of Tunisian doctors goes in the evening to Ramallah to the West Bank to examine Yasser Arafat. Its Nabil Abou Roudeina adviser affirms that Yasser Arafat is “OK”. The following day, a close relation of Yasser Arafat declares that the Tunisian doctors diagnosed a very strong influenza. October 25th, Arafat is authorized by Israel to leave Ramallah where it is confined since the end of 2001. On Wednesday, October 27 the radio public Israeli indicates Yasser Arafat lost consciousness. The Israeli authorities state that they authorized the president of the PLO with " to go where he wants for medical care, including abroad ". While specifying that they did not guarantee " not its retour" . The October 29th 2004, seriously patient, Yasser Arafat leaves Ramallah to join the Jordan, from where it goes in France, on board a medicalized plane, where it is hospitalized in the hospital of instruction of the armies Percy to Clamart following a request of the Authority palestienne. Its evacuation of its HQ of Ramallah was the several week object of negotiations led by his wife Souha Arafat.

Press coverage

The November 4th 2004, of press releases announce that it fell on several occasions into the Coma, in spite of its intensive care, in the unit of intensive care where it had entered the day before. The second channel of Israeli television as well as the Israeli military radio had first of all announced that Yasser Arafat had died quoting French sources. The corresponding one of the military radio specified that it had obtained “confirmation of died of Yasser Arafat of French source but that the official announcement of the death of the president of the Palestinian Authority should be made by the Palestinians themselves”.

November 9th a confusion settles around the health condition of Arafat. The department of health of the French Armies initially indicated to AFP not to have “not extra informations”. A few hours later, the general doctor Christian Estripeau declared that the health condition of Arafat “had worsened in the night” and its coma become “deeper”. Then, the agency Reuters announces the same day: “He died” and in Ramallah, the Palestinian minister in charge of the negotiations, Saëb Erakat, affirm with the AFP that Yasser Arafat was “in a still alive critical condition but”. A Palestinian minister, in Ramallah, declares in his turn in AFP that Arafat had died the very same day: “the question is to know how and when we will announce it. But he died, it is sure” what contradicts categorically the acting general of Palestine in France at the time, Leïla Shahid while declaring: “Its condition is bad, but it is always in life”. Mahmoud Abbas is named chief of the Liberation organization of Palestine, Farouk Kaddoumi is elected chief of Fatah, and Ahmed Qorei maintained in her functions of chief of the government. After an official homage to the military aerodrome of Villacoublay in the presence of French the Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and an official ceremony with the Cairo, in the presence of many foreign politics representatives. The November 11th, the funeral of Yasser Arafat starts with 8:50 with military club Al-Galaa, Héliopolis, close to the international airport of Cairo, in the presence of Arab and foreign leaders, but in the absence of the public. Yasser Arafat is buried the November 12th, in Mouqata' has, her last general headquarter of Ramallah in the West Bank in which he lived confined during three years, the Israeli government having refused that he is buried with Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat had on several occasions expressed the wish to be buried there. Pressures are excercées on the Israeli government during its last days so that Arafat can be there the journalist Stéphanie the Bars explains in the daily newspaper Le Monde that “Politically, the presence of the tomb of Mr. Arafat on this site, bitterly disputed since decades, would be equivalent recognizing a Palestinian sovereignty on the holy place” “the Israelis fear, moreover, that the tomb does not become a place of pilgrimage and gatherings. They also fear the surge of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in full heart of Jerusalem for the burial”. In fear of overflows, the Israeli army entirely buckled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Reactions

Jacques Chirac is the first Head of State to be reacted. He declares “75 years old, Abou Amar, of his name of war, has during one half-century incarnated Palestine, giving an international credibility to the hope of a Palestinian State, but without never managing to concretize this ambition nor to achieve his dream to request in Jerusalem”. The Pope Jean-Paul II, which met eight times the Palestinian leader requested so that “God in his mercy accommodates the heart of famous late and concedes peace with the Holy Land, with two independent and sovereign States, fully reconciled between them”, according to the spokesperson of the the Vatican. The general secretary of UNO Kofi Annan, “deeply moved”, exhorted with a revival of the israélo-Palestinian efforts of peace. For the the Arab League, it is also a “great loss”. , following the example the EC what feels the African continent. With the El Salvador, a park in the center town of the capital was renamed with its name to pay homage to him. With the the United States, the reactions are shared. If the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post see as Arafat a Palestinian leader, other preserving newspapers describe Arafat like a corrupted and brutal mafioso . The US president, George W. Bush, who introduced Arafat like an obstacle to peace, states " We hope that the future will bring the peace and the realization of the aspirations to independent and democratic Palestine, in peace with its voisins" .

Dimensioned Israeli 2 types of speech were marked. While Shimon Peres, who had taken part in the agreements of Oslo with Arafat, employed a speech enough sympathizing with the Palestinian people and which insist on the image of the father: “the Palestinians see in Arafat the father of their nation. Like a father, it made much for his children, but it also protected them in an excessive way. Its ceaseless efforts carried the Palestinian cause to the first rank of the world concerns (...). The death of a father always creates a deep pain, but it is as the occasion for the Palestinians to behave like an adult in full maturity”, Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister for the time, declares as “the recent events could constitute an historical turning point in the Middle East. Israel is a country which seeks the peace and which will continue its efforts to lead to an peace agreement with the Palestinians without delay”.

The death of Arafat causes a material change in the balance of the forces between the Fatah and the Hamas. This last gains the election local of 2005 organized by Mahmoud Abbas then the legislative elections of 2006.

Rumors and theses of the death

Many a Rumeur S circulates on the cause of the death of Yasser Arafat. Some of its partisans show the Israeli authorities to have caused the death of their leader per poisoning pretexting that the poison is the favorite weapon of Mossad, which denies Israel. Other rumors say that Arafat is reached HIV and its detractors reproach him for being homosexual. Others affirm that Arafat was the victim of her own camp eager to quickly turn a new page of the Palestinian history. Souha Arafat shows Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qorei to want “to bury it alive” to inherit its capacity, in a declaration with Al-Jazira.

Assumption of poisoning

According to its nephew, Nasser Al-Qidwa which received the medical file made up of 558 pages of the document (more of radiographies), the assumption of a poisoning is not excluded well that “no known poison” was detected. The Jordanian doctor Ashraf Al-Kourdi, doctor of various kings Jordaniens and who also followed the Palestinian president, had examined Arafat during the critical phase of his disease, before its transfer in France and he stated to have perceived indices of poisoning shortly after the death of Arafat Certaines sources affirm that Souha Arafat seized justice so that no information of its medical-records is transmitted and would have refused an offer of 2 million dollars in exchange of the access to the medical file of Arafat. The autopsy practiced by the French army medical officers does not reveal any known trace of poison.

Assumption of the AIDS

One year after the death of Arafat, Ahmed Qorei, the Prime Minister at the time, announced that the reasons of died of Yasser Arafat remained always mysterious. According to him, no trace of virus, of germ, HIV or of bacterium was found. Indeed, the Tunisian doctors who examined Arafat carried out a test HIV which appeared negative. According to an Israeli expert It is inconceivable that a disease which lasted two weeks, with terrible diarrheas, vomiting violent one, serious problems of the digestive system, and which produced serious phenomena of coagulation was caused by the AIDS .

Other experts, consulted by the Israeli daily newspaper ha' aretz, which also got the medical report/ratio, hold a different speech however. According to this newspaper, the theses of poisoning or AIDS are the theses to be privileged within sight of the report/ratio. But, in their article, the journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, quoting an Israeli expert, qualify “very small” possibility that Arafat contracted the AIDS. These Israeli experts conclude that the most probable assumption is that Yasser Arafat would have been poisoned at the time of a dinner the October 12th 2004.

Assumption of connected Duck

The Duck connected in its edition of the quoting November 17th, 2004 of the doctors " having had access to the Arafat patient and her dossier" affirm that " the causes of its death are multiples" . The newspaper affirms that Arafat was reached of a " cirrhose" liver, although it was " a true drinker of eau" . As of its admission with the Percy military hospital of Clamart, the weekly magazine, the doctors " writes; Suspectent of serious lesions hépatiques" likely to disturb the blood picture, from where its placement in hematology. If the diagnosis of leukemia is " quickly écarté" , continues connected Duck, " the liver is indeed in bad condition. " For a public not informed, cirrhosis, that want to say alcoolo. And in the context, that was not possible" , explains a doctor " of Percy" , quoted by the satirical newspaper. The connected Duck still underlines that, according to the doctors, " the living conditions which were made these three last years did not arrange the choses" and that it " could not profit from care adapted to its état".

See too

Yasser Arafat Years in Tunisia

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