FRANCE: In a deep coma, having survived a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday and the failure of his liver and kidneys yesterday, Mr Yasser Arafat seemed to cling to life last night with the same tenacity he showed through 40 years of war and negotiations with Israel.
"His heart is pounding quite well and his lungs are still functioning," Mr Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, told CNN in Ramallah. But there was no doubt that the President of the Palestinian Authority is, as his ambassador to Paris, Ms Leila Shahid said, "in the final phase of his life".
It was "a question of hours, perhaps days," Gen Christian Estripeau of the French army medical service told Le Monde.
The most powerful symbol of Arafat's imminent demise was the arrival in Paris yesterday of Sheikh Tayssir Tamimi, a close friend and the head of Islamic courts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mr Shaath said the imam would provide "a spiritual and comforting presence in these difficult circumstances".
Wearing the long dark robe and white turban of a Sunni cleric, Sheikh Tamimi emerged briefly from the Percy Army Training Hospital at Clamart to tell reporters: "I have seen Yasser Arafat. He is still alive. I read the Koran to him and I am going back in to pray at his side."
There could be no question of speeding up Mr Arafat's death, the sheikh said. "As long as there is warmth in his body, we cannot unplug the equipment. That is forbidden by Sharia [ Islamic law]." In Islamic tradition, Mr Arafat's bed is now positioned so that he faces Mecca. The last words of a Muslim are supposed to be the Shahada or profession of faith ("There is no God but God, and Mohamed is his prophet"). If a dying person is unable to recite these words, a religious authority may whisper them into his ear, holding up his index finger so that God recognises him. After Mr Arafat dies, Sheikh Tamimi will wash his body.
The French, who flew Mr Arafat from Amman to the outskirts of Paris on October 29th, will transport his body first to Egypt, where he will lie in state at Cairo airport, then on to Amman and Ramallah.
Though final arrangements have not been formally announced, Mr Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet member, said there was no longer any doubt that Mr Arafat will be buried in the Muqata'a compound where he was a virtual prisoner of the Israelis for the last 34 months.
This was a compromise for both sides. Israel wanted Arafat to be interred in the run-down cemetery in Khan Younis, Gaza, where his father and sister are buried. Mr Arafat always wanted to make his final resting place on the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) in Jerusalem, but the Israelis did not want a shrine visited by Palestinian pilgrims in the heart of their self-declared "eternal, undivided capital".
Among the many heads of state expected to attend the ceremony in Cairo are the leaders of Lebanon, Syria and Libya - all countries who at some point fought Arafat.
In September 2002, Israeli army bulldozers levelled much of the Muqata'a complex. It took an international outcry to stop them burying Mr Arafat alive in his office. Amid this field of ruins, the Palestinians yesterday began building a "temporary" mausoleum; "temporary" because like Arafat until he lost consciousness, they are determined to one day make Jerusalem their capital.
