Arafat in a state of clinical death, alert in the Palestinian territories
Vagueness still overwhelms the fate of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who has been in coma, according to the French medical sources which treat him at Percy military hospital in Paris.
The sources explained that the state of "Brain death" precedes the death of any person that can be kept alive with the help of medical instrument in the intensive care room.
One of the medical team member said that Arafat is in a deep coma of level 4. This means that he is totally unconscious, the halt of any brain activity and spontaneous breathing.
Expressing their sympathy with the Palestinian President scores of Arafat's supporters gathered before Percy hospital in Klamar in Paris suburbs carrying the Palestinian flags, candles and Arafat's pictures.
Meantime, the Palestinian security forces were put in a state of alert in precaution of the death announcement of Arafat.
One leading figure in the Islamic Jihad movement said that the higher follow up committee of the Palestinian groups will hold later today, Friday, an emergency meeting in Gaza in order to discuss the development of conditions in light of the deteriorated health conditions in Arafat's health.
The Groups higher committee includes representatives for 13 Palestinian groups including the National Liberation ( fatah), the Islamic resistance ( Hamas), the Islamic Jihad movements and the two people's and democratic fronts for the liberation of Palestine. The meeting will be held at the headquarters if the legislative council in Gaza.
The leading figure in the Jihad movement Muhammad al-Hindi said that the meeting will deal with "the possibility of crystallizing a common Palestinian position when Arafat dies." He added Israel seeks to make use of the situation by disseminating rumors in the lines of the Palestinian people and implant seeds of division," stressing the importance of protecting the Palestinian resistance against the occupation.
In this context the Israeli TV quoted officials in the government as saying that Arafat can not be buried except in Gaza. Sharon's government repeated its rejection to bury the Palestinian President in East's Jerusalem al-Aqsa mosque.
The prime minister of the Israel Ariel Sharon said last Sunday replying to a question debated by the minister of justice Youssef Labid "as far as I am in the authority, and I do not want to quit, Arafat will not be buried in Jerusalem."
