Middle East: Even in death, Yasser Arafat knows how to keep the media waiting. And he drew some unexpected visitors to the gates of his Paris hospital yesterday, reports Lara Marlowe.
Leila Shahid, the Palestinian ambassador to Paris, was slightly indignant on French radio yesterday morning. Reports that President Arafat was "brain dead" were "Israeli disinformation", she said.
Mr Arafat was "in a reversible coma" and might well amaze the world again with his survival powers. By afternoon, Ms Shahid admitted that the Palestinian leader was "hovering between life and death".
The crowd of journalists outside the hospital swelled to more than 1,000. Mr Arafat's wife, Suha, refused to allow doctors to stop life-support systems, the Gulf television networks were saying. France, Egypt and Israel were arguing over burial arrangements, said another rumour. The Palestinians wanted to fly Mr Arafat to Egypt or Jordan so that he could die in Palestine.
Across the road from the media circus, a small group of mostly Arab supporters were a reminder that Mr Arafat is the most loved Arab leader since the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. They have constructed a little shrine to him, all photographs and flowers, flags and burning candles, eerily reminiscent of the memorials after September 11th and the Madrid bombings.
Mr Mohamed Mazlouf, a 45-year-old Franco-Tunisian truck driver, has spent every day of the past week in front of the hospital "to support Mr Arafat, to be near him". No other leader held a candle to Mr Arafat, Mr Mazlouf continued.
"He is irreplaceable. Everyone tried to get rid of him - Americans, Israelis, other Arabs. They could not, because he is loved by his people."
Ms Shireen Nazer is a 25-year-old student from Ramallah. She and three other Palestinian students took the train from Rennes to Paris when they heard Mr Arafat was in critical condition.
"He's the one who created a Palestinian state," Ms Nazer said. "It is because of him the world knows about Palestine."
What did it feel like to know he was dying, just a few hundred metres away? The young woman turned her head so I would not see her tears, then murmured: "I still hope, all the same."
Ms Afifé Safieh (48) stood out in the crowd because of her beauty and elegant clothing. A Catholic Palestinian from Jerusalem, she came to France many years ago as a student, then stayed to work in haute couture.
"Mr Arafat is a great symbol for Palestinians," she said. "We are counting on him to save Palestinians from the misery of the camps. There are people being shot dead there every day."
Mr Faisal Souilmi (32), a carpenter from Tunisia, said he had come to the military hospital because "if there's going to be any news it will be here. Not for nothing are there hundreds of journalists waiting for confirmation of his death".
Mr Arafat was not his president, Mr Souilmi said. "But he is a brother and a father who symbolises our just struggle for independence from the West. In the heart of every Arab, there is sadness for the injustice to the Palestinians."
All eyes turned to an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi clutching a bouquet of lilies and chrysanthemums as he negotiated his way through the French riot police. "That warms my heart," said Ms Hayat Chihi (44), a Tunisian housewife. "You see, there are good people everywhere."
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss had just arrived from New York to deliver the flowers, in an earthen pot from Jerusalem, dispatched by his fellow rabbis in Jews United Against Zionism. "Best wishes for President Arafat's health, and solidarity with the Palestinian people," said the card in English and Hebrew.
Rabbi Weiss recoiled when I tried to shake his hand; to do so would be against his religion.
"Zionism is not Judaism. Jews and Palestinians can live together," he explained. "God put us into exile around 2,000 years ago, and he expressly forbade us to make our own state. Our synagogues all over the world are praying for the health of President Arafat. Our voices are being stifled by the power of Zionism and their Media Watch and AIPAC [ the main Israeli lobby group in the US]."
The Rabbi anxiously watched the dimming light beyond the television vans. It was only a few minutes to the Jewish Sabbath. "I must go," he repeated. "I am not allowed to travel after sundown."
He ran towards the main road, clutching his black hat to his head, his long curls bobbing.
Night fell before the riot police began re-arranging the barriers so that Gen Christian Estripeau, the head doctor at the military hospital, could make the two-minute statement that 1,000 journalists had waited for all day: "The state of health of President Arafat has not worsened and is considered stable compared to the last health update." In his glory days in Beirut and Tunis, Yasser Arafat used to postpone promised interviews for days, then summon journalists in the early hours of the morning.
After Gen Estripeau's fleeting performance, the cameramen hunkered down for another night vigil. Even at the hour of death, President Arafat knows how to keep the media waiting.