MIDDLE EAST Cleric rushes to visit Arafat

Burial is planned in the sandbagged headquarters he couldn't leave.
CLAMART, France (AP) -- A top Islamic cleric rushed from the West Bank to Yasser Arafat's hospital bedside today in what an aide to the Palestinian leader called the "final phase" of his life.
"I'm here to be by my longtime friend's side in his time of need and to pray for his speedy recovery," the cleric, Taisser Bayoud Tamimi, told The Associated Press by phone shortly before arriving at the hospital.
"It's absolutely rejected," he shouted outside the hospital when asked by reporters if the life support would be turned off.
"It is prohibited in Islam," he said. "As long as there are signs of life in the body of the president, he will remain under treatment."
Deteriorating condition
But aides said Arafat's health was deteriorating, with a "complication" to his vital organs as doctors struggle to stop the bleeding in his brain.
The Palestinian envoy to France, Leila Shahid, had insisted in an interview with France-Info radio that Tamimi was not coming "to disconnect" Arafat from life support.
"It is clear, as for a Christian, as for a Jew, that a religious man needs to be with his patient when he is in the final phase of his life," Shahid said. "That is why he is here."
On Tuesday, doctors said Arafat's coma had deepened and his caretaker government chose a burial site and began preparing for a funeral.
Shahid told France-Info that he was still "in a deep coma" this morning, but added there was a "complication in the state of all of his vital organs."
He was therefore "in a critical state," she said. "The reality is that he is in the hands of God."
At a press conference in Ramallah late Tuesday, Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said doctors were trying to relieve bleeding from a severe brain hemorrhage, which can cause brain damage.
A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said today that French doctors told the Palestinian delegation that this kind of bleeding meant that Arafat's death was expected within 24 hours -- a period that has since passed.
Shahid said doctors at the Percy Military Training Hospital were fighting to keep him alive. The physicians "are doing everything, in the intensive care unit, to try to give him his chances," she said.
Return home
But she also said that France, which sent a plane to bring Arafat to France on Oct. 29, would also organize his repatriation.
"France has already proved that it was capable, in less than 24 hours, of putting in place what was necessary to go and get him. It will organize his return home," she said.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said said Tamimi, "a very close friend" of Arafat's who heads the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was not coming to give advice on removing Arafat from life support.
Burial place
Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, decided that when the time comes, they would bury Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters, known as the Muqata, in Ramallah, and turn it into a shrine, defusing a potential conflict with Israel by dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial.
The Israeli Cabinet today approved that plan and has relayed the decision to the Palestinians, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
Israel had been pushing for a Gaza burial, but the Palestinians wanted Jerusalem. Palestinians see Arafat's Ramallah headquarters -- his virtual prison for the last three years -- as a symbol of his resistance. Burial there is less politically sensitive for Israel.
Egypt offered to host the main funeral in Cairo -- a site less problematic for foreign dignitaries -- before a Ramallah burial.
The central committee of Arafat's Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee were also taking up that and other questions, including Arafat's succession, today.
"Many issues related to Arafat's burial, if he dies, have to be discussed," said Abbas Zaki, a Fatah central committee member.
While the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner's illness remains publicly undisclosed, his condition has steadily worsened since he was flown to a military hospital outside Paris on Oct. 29.
Description of treatment
Shaath gave the first detailed description of Arafat's treatment at a Paris news conference, after days of confusing and often conflicting reports.
The French medical team treating Arafat publicly acknowledged his comatose condition for the first time Tuesday and said it had worsened.
Gen. Christian Estripeau, a spokesman for Percy Military Training Hospital, declined to offer a prognosis but said the deterioration in Arafat's condition marked "a significant stage."
Shaath was part of a delegation led by Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, the No. 2 man behind Arafat in the PLO. The group returned to the West Bank early today after a 24-hour visit.
Shaath's news conference underlined that the Palestinian leadership was now in control of information about Arafat.
Palestinian officials had been denied access by Arafat's wife, Suha, who used France's strict privacy laws that give authority to the family.
Shaath said a dramatic disagreement with Arafat's wife, who had accused the visiting Palestinians of trying to topple their longtime leader, had been smoothed over and that she embraced delegation members during their two-hour visit to the hospital.
"She is the wife of a great man, our leader, and is the mother of his only daughter," Shaath said. "She will always be respected and protected by the Palestinian people."