Ailing Arafat in intensive care

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is in intensive care undergoing a new round of tests today after his still-unexplained condition took a sudden turn for the worse.

Palestinian officials said 75-year-old Arafat’s condition had seriously deteriorated last night and he was rushed into intensive care at a French military hospital outside Paris where he has been undergoing treatment for a week.

Doctors still did not know the cause of the blood and digestive disorders uncovered over the past few days, the sources said, adding that Arafat was undergoing additional tests.

French hospital and military officials refused to comment, but more information was expected from a previously planned news conference this afternoon.

Israel Radio reported that Mahmoud Abbas, number two in the hierarchy of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation and his first prime minister, was on his way to Paris to see him early today.

Yet Arafat’s top aides denied there had been any setback and accused Israel of spreading rumours. The report first aired on Israel’s Channel Two television.

“These unfounded reports are not coming from French medical teams, these are leaks from the Israeli side,” said Mohammed Dahlan, a former Palestinian security chief.

“Leaking such rumours will only complicate things and also complicate the situation within the Palestinian public,” he told reporters in Paris.

Arafat, who has been ill for three weeks, was flown to the military hospital on Friday after passing out briefly at his west Bank headquarters.

He was initially described as having a bad flu, with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea.

Palestinian officials insist publicly leukaemia and other forms of cancer, as well as any type of poisoning, have been ruled out.

Undoubtedly conscious of the anxiety back home at the thought of a future without Arafat – who has led the Palestinians for 40 years with no obvious successor – they have previously described his condition as improving and said more tests were being done.

Khaled Salem, Arafat’s top aide, said early today that the medical analysis was “deepening a little bit” but he remained confident Arafat would recover.

“There are no setbacks,” he told reporters outside the hospital. “It’s no secret he’s ill, that’s why he’s in France, but there is no threat, there is no danger, no serious degradation.”

In Israel, speculation has ranged from a viral infection to stomach cancer.

His brother, Fathi Arafat, has had stomach cancer for four years and is currently in hospital in Cairo with an advanced stage, according to doctors there.

On Tuesday, one source who said he had been briefed on the Palestinian leader’s status told The Associated Press that his condition was “fatal” – but he gave no further details and the claim could not be confirmed.

Yesterday, Shahid said Arafat felt well enough to ask about the US presidential election. An aide later issued a statement in Arafat’s name congratulating George Bush on his re-election.

Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom said Israel was tracking Arafat’s health “very carefully”.

“Our goal is to prepare for the day after, if and when he dies,” he told Israel Radio.

Israeli intelligence was widely criticised after it was caught off guard last week by the sudden deterioration in Arafat’s health.

Shalom said his condition “is very serious”, but gave no details. At the same time, he said: “It is too soon to eulogise Yasser Arafat."

Efforts early today to reach Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France who has been serving as Arafat’s official spokeswoman in Paris, were unsuccessful.