Yasser Arafat's weighty medical dossier is inconclusive on the cause of the Palestinian leader's death but the blame still lies with Israel, his nephew said.
Doctors found no known poisons in Arafat's body, but "I believe the Israeli authorities are largely responsible for what happened," said Nasser al-Kidwa, who is also the Palestinian representative to the UN.
His accusation, at a Paris news conference on Monday, two hours after French authorities gave him the files despite objections from Arafat's widow, could inflame suspicions among Palestinians that Israel was somehow to blame -- if only by confining Arafat to his West Bank headquarters for the last three years of his life, as Al-Kidwa asserted.
He said he had no doubts that Arafat's still undisclosed illness was "connected to the conditions that the late president was living and suffering from ... This is a principle part of the issue."
The nephew acknowledged that he had not had time to read the 558-page file, plus X-rays, that he said would be provided to Palestinian leaders.
They have promised to disclose the cause of Arafat's death and formed an inquiry committee that includes doctors who treated him before he was flown to a Paris-area military hospital where he died Nov. 11, aged 75.
Al-Kidwa said toxicology tests were conducted during Arafat's two-week stay in France but "no poisons known to doctors were found." He did not, however, categorically rule out poisoning -- which again could fuel conspiracy theories in the Middle East that Arafat was murdered.
"This possibility could not be excluded," he said. "We are not excluding that but we are not asserting that, because ... we do not have the proof that suggests there was poison."
He promised that the Palestinian Authority would study the file to try to determine a cause of death, but also counseled patience.
"For the French authorities, medically, the file was considered closed. For us, and because of the lack of a clear diagnosis, a question mark remains and personally I believe that it will remain there for some time to come," al-Kidwa said.
"At some point the Palestinian people will know more facts. At some point the Palestinians will collectively reach a conclusion. At that point the matter will come to rest," he added.
French officials say judicial authorities here would have acted had they suspected wrongdoing.
Before his death, French doctors had disclosed that Arafat had a low count of platelets -- which aid in blood clotting -- a high white blood cell count, that leukemia had been ruled out and that he was in a coma. Palestinian officials said he had a brain hemorrhage shortly before he died.
That is consistent with a variety of illnesses from pneumonia to cancer. Arafat had been suffering from poor health for years before France flew him here on Oct. 29 for treatment after his condition deteriorated.
Farouk Kaddoumi, the new head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's mainstream Fatah faction, reiterated on Monday in Beirut, Lebanon, that he still believes Arafat was poisoned. Kaddoumi said all symptoms, treatments and medical tests had eliminated all possible ailments he might have died from.
"Why, then, the low platelets count? There is no reason except poisoning," he said.
Al-Kidwa, meanwhile, played down objections from Arafat's widow, Suha, about the French decision to give him the files.
"The Palestinian people have the right to know," he said.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS