Is Arafat Dead Or Not ?

[Yosemite Joy]

Yes. He is dead. The President was just commenting on it.

[Yosemite Joy]

Or... maybe not.
I just read a report that he is in a coma.

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[Raider]

[Mibrew]

Arafat alive but in grave condition


Thursday 04 November 2004, 23:21 Makka Time, 20:21 GMT

A gravely ill Yasir Arafat is clinging to life, French doctors said, refuting reports that Arafat has died.

For their part, Palestinian officials denied Arafat has died, saying he is in a coma after being rushed, following overnight deterioration, to the intensive care unit of the military hospital outside Paris where he is being treated.

"I am standing next to the president's bed - he is in a grave condition," Arafat's chief of staff, Ramzi Khoury, told an Associated Press reporter in Paris.

At a news conference at military hospital where Arafat is hospitalised, a spokesman said Arafat is alive.

"Mr Arafat is not dead," French physician Dr Christian Estripeau said.

Contradictory reports

The statement came amid a blizzard of contradictory reports about Arafat's status, with some media reports saying the Palestinian leader was dead, other saying he was brain dead and some Palestinian officials insisting he was gravely ill but alive.

At least one report describes the
Palestinian leader as 'brain dead'

AFP quoted a French medical source as saying on Thursday that Arafat is "brain dead" but is being kept on life-support machines while in an irreversible coma.

Technically, Arafat is "not dead", the source told AFP on condition of confidentiality. But there was no hope of him leaving his vegetative state and recovering basic body functions such as breathing without assistance.

Such artificial care can be "extended for several days or several weeks thanks to the machines," the source said.

But Arafat's Jordanian physician Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi has told Aljazeera the Palestinian leader is not brain dead while admitting that his condition is getting worse.
'No brain death'

"President Arafat does not have cardiac arrest or heart failure," Dr al-Kurdi said.

"He is still alive. He is not clinically dead. There is no brain death, but his condition is deteriorating. Because there has been no diagnosis, we don't know what's wrong with him."




Arafat's brain was subject to cross-sectional imaging to determine whether he had a haemorrhage in the brain or not, the doctor said.


"But the cross-sectional imaging of the brain does not mean that he is brain dead or that he is clinically dead."



On speculation that Arafat may have been poisoned, Dr al-Kurdi said it would not be possible to comment until the diagnosis was completed by doctors in France.



"There is no brain death, but his condition is deteriorating. Because there has been no diagnosis, we don't know what's wrong with him"

Dr Ashraf al-Kurdi,
Yasir Arafat's Jordanian physician
'Misunderstanding'
Associated Press reports that Israeli TV's Channel Two cited Israeli security officials as saying they had been told by a reliable French source that Arafat had died.

In Brussels, Luxembourg's Prime Minsiter Jean-Claude Juncker also said Arafat had died, but his spokesman Lucien Michels later retracted the statement, calling it "a misunderstanding".



The ailing Arafat arrived last Friday on a French offer of medical treatment after passing out briefly at his West Bank headquarters. He was initially described as having a bad flu, with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea.



He was rushed into intensive care on Thursday after deteriorating overnight.

[Dodie]

He will be in a coma until the feuding factions decide on a successor. Dodie

[LindaBo]

I think hes dead! and they just need time to get things in order.THEN they well make it final. LindaBo If not i wonder how long they are going to keep him on life support.We need a Contest on that,to see who comes the closes to them pulling the plug* http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/smoking.gif

[Raider]

Arafat poisoned?

BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Candles are lit for Yasser Arafat at Paris hospital, where he lies in a coma.
A Palenstian diplomat accused the Israelis yesterday of poisoning Yasser Arafat.

"The doctors until now could not diagnose precisely what is wrong with him, but it is believed there is a poison," Ali Kazak, who heads the Palestinian delegation to Australia, told the Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne.

"It could be poison because they have checked everything, and his body is in good health, there is no cancer, it is not leukemia."

Arafat's doctor, Ashraf Kurdi, told the Al Jazeera satellite TV network that, "Arafat's health condition makes poisoning a strong possibility."

Israelis, who gave Arafat safe passage from his West Bank compound to a French military hospital last week, denied the charge.

"It's absolute nonsense; it's completely ridiculous," an Israeli government source said. Kurdi has not yet diagnosed Arafat's mysterious blood ailment, and last night the 75-year-old Palestinian leader was hovering "between life and death."

"He is in a coma," Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, said. "We don't know the type, but it's a reversible coma. He may or may not wake up. All vital organs are functioning."

But other Arafat aides insisted their 75-year-old leader was brain dead and on life support. They said his wife, Suha, is weighing whether to pull the plug.

"He is being aided by respiratory machines and his condition appears irreversible," a high-ranking Palestinian official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Arafat jealously guarded his power and never appointed a successor. As he lay near death, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's No. 2 in the Palestine Liberation Organization, were taking the reins of the government.


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[Yosemite Joy]

He has now joined Hitler in Hell.

Errr I mean, what a peaceful terrorist he is.. "God bless his soul"
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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/11/arafat_the_monster/

[Raider]

As of 7:46 pm he's still dead. http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/yes.gif Stay tuned for any changes.

[Keith]

http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/sneaky.gif Laid to rest on his right side , so that he will be faceing Mecca http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/zzz.gif And his followers can kiss his http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/eusa_dance.gif Rear-end.. http://oakhurstforums.com/icon/laugh3.gif ...