Palestinians grapple with future as Arafat enters coma

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat battled for his life yesterday after slipping into a coma at a military hospital outside of Paris.

“President Arafat does not have cardiac arrest or heart failure,” said Ashraf al-Kurdi, Mr. Arafat’s Jordanian doctor.

“He is still alive. He is not clinically dead. There is no brain death, but his condition is deteriorating.”

A senior Palestinian official told Reuters news agency:

“President Arafat is in very serious condition. He is still in a coma. The sense people are getting is that they are increasingly pessimistic.”

In Paris and in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Mr. Arafat has lived under virtual house arrest for more than two years, Palestinian officials denied early reports of Mr. Arafat’s death.

But the inconsistencies in their descriptions of his condition only stoked speculation that the prognosis for the Palestinian leader’s recovery was increasingly bleak.

The 75-year-old leader, who embodies the Palestinian struggle for statehood, is being treated for a blood disorder that doctors have been unable to diagnose more specifically.

Mr. Arafat was moved into an intensive care unit on Wednesday, triggering the snowballing confusion about his condition. He was flown to the hospital outside Paris on Oct. 29.

Palestinian officials held a series of meetings in Ramallah in an apparent effort to set up a transitional government that would fill the power vacuum left by Mr. Arafat, who dominated the Palestinian struggle against Israel for four decades.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told reporters that the Palestinian leader’s condition was “critical but controllable” and that there had been no change — for better or for worse — since Wednesday.

Earlier yesterday, Luxembourgian Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters that the Palestinian leader had died. He later retracted the statement after speaking with French President Jacques Chirac, who visited Mr. Arafat.

“So many people are making declarations without any basis,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian reform activist. “I am upset at how many times Israel Radio has announced the passing of Yasser Arafat. It is untrue and completely unethical.”

At a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee yesterday, Mr. Qureia was granted the authority exercised by Mr. Arafat on security and fiscal matters. Meanwhile, Palestinian security services were placed on high alert yesterday evening because of the decline in Mr. Arafat’s condition, according to an Israel Radio report.

Today, Mr. Qureia is expected to visit the Gaza Strip, where a meeting with security leaders is aimed at quelling concern over the prospects of anarchy upon Mr. Arafat’s death.

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