Israeli minister: Arafat is brain dead

An Israeli Cabinet minister said today it was ``clear'' Yasser Arafat was brain dead and was being kept on a life support machine.

Justice minister Yosef Lapid was the first senior Israeli official to speak in detail about Arafat’s condition. The source of Lapid’s information was not immediately clear.

Interviewed on Israel TV’s Channel Two, Lapid said: “I don’t know more than what the whole world knows. It is clear now that he is brain dead, clinically dead, and they are keeping him alive artificially. They will need to decide when to stop it.”

Arafat aides have denied the claim, but admitted he is in a very serious condition.

Anxious Palestinian officials held an emergency meeting on how to prevent unrest if their 75-year-old leader dies.

A swirl of reports saying Arafat had died yesterday were denied by doctors at the military hospital outside Paris where the Palestinian leader has been treated since being airlifted to France last week.

A senior Palestinian official said Arafat was in a coma in the intensive care unit. Arafat’s chief of staff, Ramzi Khoury, called an Associated Press reporter and said: “I am standing next to the president’s bed. He is in grave condition.”

Outside the hospital, about 50 well-wishers held a vigil late into the night. Some held candles, others Arafat portraits. A large Palestinian flag hung from the hospital’s outer wall.

“It tears your heart up,” said Mahmod Nimr, 36, an unemployed Palestinian by the main gate of the hospital. ”I can’t see someone taking his place.”

On a day of high drama, there were persistent and contradictory reports about Arafat’s condition.

Luxembourg’s prime minister announced at a summit of European leaders in Brussels yesterday that Arafat had died, but his spokesman later said it had been a ”misunderstanding”.

The Israeli television network Channel Two reported that Arafat was brain dead but remained on life support. But Arafat’s personal physician, Dr Ashraf Kurdi, said that a brain scan showed Arafat had not suffered a haemorrhage or stroke, and “has no type of brain death”.

French television station LCI quoted an anonymous French medical official as saying Arafat was in an “irreversible coma” and “intubated” – a process that involves threading a tube down the windpipe to the lungs to connect it to a life-support machine to help the patient breathe.

To be on life-support, a patient must be unconscious, but not necessarily brain dead or even in a coma.

A Palestinian official in Gaza who is close to Arafat’s wife, Suha, said she told him Arafat fell unconscious after receiving a strong anaesthetic for a biopsy.

The official quoted her as saying Arafat was recovering.

Palestinian leaders held an emergency meeting in the West Bank, and foreign minister Nabil Shaath said top officials were in touch with Arafat’s hospital every 30 minutes to check on his condition.

Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia assumed some of Arafat’s financial powers, a Palestinian official said.

“The Palestinian leadership is in constant meeting to follow up on the president’s health,” Shaath said from Ramallah, where leaders of the PLO and Arafat’s Fatah movement were meeting.

A prolonged Arafat incapacitation – or death – could have a profound impact on the Middle East.

There are fears of unrest among Palestinian factions, which Arafat, viewed as a national symbol by even some who opposed him, was largely able to prevent. Furthermore, chaos in the West Bank and Gaza could make any co-operation with Israel even more difficult.

On the other hand, Israel and the United States have in recent years shunned Arafat as a terrorist and an obstacle to peace, and his replacement by a new leadership could open the door to renewed peace talks. Such a scenario could affect Israel’s current plans to pull soldiers and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in a unilateral move not co-ordinated with the Palestinians.

The Israeli army, which is on high alert, has a plan to deal with the fallout from Arafat’s death, including possible Palestinian riots.

The Israeli military has not yet moved forces to anticipated problem areas, but commanders were told to be on standby.

Among Israel’s plans are ways to prevent Arafat from being buried in Jerusalem. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has said he would not permit Arafat to be buried in the city, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as their capital.

Arafat was taken to intensive care after his condition worsened Wednesday. French President Jacques Chirac went to the hospital yesterday and saw Arafat and his wife, “to whom he expressed his best wishes”, Chirac’s office said. The president also met members of the Palestinian Authority and doctors.

French doctors have not revealed Arafat’s illness and his condition has largely remained a mystery.