Arafat finally laid to rest

Yasser Arafat was laid to rest in a marble-and-stone grave today after his flag-draped coffin was borne through a sea of emotional Palestinians who swarmed around the helicopter that had carried him from a state funeral in Egypt.

Police fired wildly into the air to keep back the surging crowd at the West Bank compound known as the Muqata, where Arafat spent his last years as a virtual prisoner.

Scuffles broke out and stretchers carried away two people who were trampled in the melee.

After Arafat’s body was lowered into the ground in Ramallah, Muslim clerics read Koranic verses and the late leader’s bodyguards wept and embraced each other.

Officials tried for 25 minutes to open the helicopter door to remove the coffin onto a jeep that ploughed through the crowd to clear a path.

As the coffin was carried toward the grave, police jumped on top of it, waved their arms and flashed the victory sign. People chanted: “With our blood and our soul we will redeem you Yasser Arafat!”

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s director of intelligence, tried to emerge from the helicopter, but were kept back by the huge crowd.

“It is not what we expected,” said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, who travelled in the helicopter carrying Arafat’s coffin.

“At the same we had to do the burial before sunset in Islamic tradition … I expected much better, more organised but things got out of hand, unfortunately.”

The red, white, green and black flag was ripped off the coffin as it was carried through the crowd.

The failure of police to control the pandemonium augured poorly for Palestinian hopes to maintain calm and order in the wake of Arafat’s death.

Earlier, people burst through gates of the compound, known as the Muqata, and climbed over walls to pay their final respects to the man who embodied their dreams of statehood.

As Arafat’s helicopter landed, the crowd cried out ”Welcome, welcome Abu Ammar!” using his nom de guerre. ”Welcome welcome old man!”

Armed policemen had tried for several hours to keep people back, but mourners, eager to get close to the grave, pushed their way through. Police scrambled to keep people off the helicopter landing pad.

Moments before the Jordanian helicopter landed a car bomb in Ramallah killed two Palestinians, said the Israeli emergency service.

Buildings in the West Bank and Gaza were plastered with Arafat’s photo and people waved black and white scarves, the colours of the late leader’s Fatah movement.

In Gaza City, hundreds of people gathered on rooftops, streets and apartment balconies in hopes of catching a glimpse of Arafat’s helicopter. Barred from attending Arafat’s burial, tens of thousands of Gaza residents held rallies and symbolic funerals across the strip.

A small group of masked gunmen marched into the Muqata, ignoring calls from official Palestine TV not to carry arms or mask faces, as is common in Palestinian funerals during times of crisis.

However, the gunmen calmly submitted to inspection by plainclothes security personnel who ensured there were no bullets in the chambers.

The cooperation between militants and policemen was a likely reflection of Palestinians’ desire for consensus in the wake of Arafat’s death.

The 75-year-old Arafat, who led the Palestinians for four decades, died in a Paris hospital from an undisclosed illness that had plunged him into a week long coma.

He had spent his final three years confined to his Ramallah headquarters never leaving out of fear the Israelis wouldn’t allow him back in.

Today, teenage boys climbed onto the walls of the compound chanting “Whoever poisoned Arafat, we will drink his blood.” Others cried out, “Allahu Akbar", Arabic for ”God is great”, and “We want to see Abu Ammar.”

Top Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim emerged from the compound and asked the crowd to stop chanting.

“The whole world is watching us now on television and we have to reflect our real picture,” he said.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinian youths scuffled with Israeli police outside the al-Aqsa mosque – the third holiest site in Islam – after police barred them from prayers amid fear of riots and unrest during Arafat’s funeral.

Israeli police, ordered to stay on the sidelines of the burial, were on their highest state of alert and all leave was cancelled in case the prayers for the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, together with mourning for Arafat, would get out of control.

A funeral service took place in Cairo before Arafat was flown to the West Bank today.

It began with humble prayers and ended with an almost-triumphant procession, his flag-draped wooden coffin set on a horse-drawn gun carriage and followed by a crowd of presidents and kings.

Arafat’s widow and young daughter cried as they watched the casket being carried to an Egyptian military plane.

As the casket was placed on board, Egyptian television showed pictures of a veiled Suha Arafat, the Palestinian leader’s widow and a rare picture of nine-year-old Zahwa, tears in her eyes as she stood next to her mother.

The Palestinian and Egyptian national anthems played before the plane took off.

The high-security funeral in Cairo permitted no public access but was aired live on Egyptian television.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah as well as Farouk Kaddoumi, the newly chosen leader of the Fatah organisation, and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the PLO executive committee, were among front-row dignitaries trailing the casket down a closed-to-the public residential street.

The procession ended at a nearby military airport, where Arafat’s body was flown out. He was to be buried before sunset in a marble and stone grave placed under a small cluster of trees at the edge of the Muqata’s main car park.

Two Muslim clerics and a Christian priest stood next to the grave awaiting Arafat’s body.

“He is the symbol, he is the cause, he is everything. He will be missed and cannot be replaced,” said Jumana Hananiya, 23, the daughter of the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament who said Arafat recently received her family at the Muqata for an engagement party.

“He was a gentleman. He always kissed a woman’s hand when he greeted her.”

Earlier, workers at the Muqata raked sand to level the ground as they laid grey marble slabs around the base of tomb. The Palestinians consider the grave site temporary – a place for Arafat’s body until the day they hope they can honour his request to be buried in Jerusalem.

Flags flew at half staff in the compound, where Palestinian policemen rehearsed rifle drills for the ceremony. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia briefly stopped by to inspect progress on Arafat’s tomb.

Symbolic funeral processions were held in towns and cities across the West Bank and Gaza.

Among the dignitaries who attended the Cairo ceremony were Syrian President Bashar Assad, Sultan Hasanal Bolkiah of Brunei, South African President Thabo Mbeki, European Union Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana and Pope Shenouda III, head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church.

Ireland was represented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.