Middle East: Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat suffered a brain haemorrhage yesterday and aides said he had died at a hospital in Paris, but confusion grew as officials insisted he was still clinging to life.
Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, in a strenuous denial, said the Palestinian president, was "very much alive", but at least five senior sources said he had succumbed to the mystery illness that led to his being flown to Paris on October 29th.
Palestinians last night sat before their television sets waiting for news about Mr Arafat's condition.
Televisions sets were switched on as families sat down for iftar, the Ramadan breakfast, at a quarter to five in the afternoon.
But impatient people had to wait for two hours before Dr Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, announced that Mr Arafat had suffered a brain haemorrhage. Blinking to keep back the tears, Dr Erekat asked Palestinians to pray for Mr Arafat, who, he said, remained alive but in grave condition.
Unnamed fficials with the top-level Palestinian delegation in Paris said Mr Arafat had died, but most Palestinians waited for the formal announcement of his passing before beginning to mourn him.
The main street of Beit Hanina, a prosperous dormitory suburb of Jerusalem, blazed with colour. The shops, decorated with strings of fairy lights, were all open. But customers were few, and traffic was light. There was no barrage of Ramadan firecrackers. It was a silent night. When I asked the manager of Jafar's Supermarket, "Will you open tomorrow?", he replied, "I will know tomorrow morning."
Once Mr Arafat's death is proclaimed, there will be three days of official mourning. The government shuts down, schools and shops close, Palestinians don black and go to pay their respects at the muqata, Mr Arafat's compound where Palestinian officials say he will be laid to rest.
Dr Erekat said that the muqata, the symbol of Palestinian "steadfastness," was the appropriate site for Mr Arafat's grave.
In Ramallah, television teams continued to besiege the muqata.
Activists belonging to Mr Arafat's ruling Fateh movement prepared for mass mourning while the masses remained at home flicking through the range of satellite channels for the latest news from Paris.
Palestinians did not begin to make their way to the muqata until were told that the delegation which travelled to Paris to discuss Mr Arafat's situation with his doctors would return early in the morning and make a formal statement.
The streets of the new neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem remained quiet until about half past eight. Then knots of shebab, lads, gathered to chant slogans supporting Mr Arafat as they made their way to the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary on the acropolis of the holy city, to take part in the prayers of Laila al-Qader.
The shebab fought their way through the densely packed streets of the Old City where shoppers were buying food for the next few days. Many also stocked up for the feast which ends Ramadan and bought gifts of clothing for children.
Among the throng were Palestinian citizens of Israel who came by the thousand by bus and car from Galilee in the north to buy supplies, thereby sustaining Jerusalem's merchants whose West Bank customers have not been permitted by Israel to come to Jerusalem for a dozen years now.
The Palestinian mood is of resignation. They accept Mr Arafat's death. He was old and frail. But they are also angry over his incarceration in the muqata since December 2001.
The assertion by the Foreign Minister, Dr Nabil Shaath, that Mr Arafat had not been poisoned was received with relief. However, Dr Shaath also said that Israel's siege of Mr Arafat's compound had contributed to his ill-health, and this, as far as a majority of Palestinians are concerned, laid the primary blame for his death on Israel.
Mr Arafat was the man who put Palestine back on the world map, the father of his people.