A top Muslim cleric has rushed to Yasser Arafat’s bedside in a French hospital, insisting the veteran Palestinian leader is still alive even as aides pushed ahead with burial preparations.

Arafat, 75, suffered a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday al the hospital where he was flown from the West Bank on October 29 and had lain in a coma. Officials maintained in public that he was alive, though aides said privately that he wras dead.

Palestinian sources said Arafat’s death could be announced on Wednesday and arrangements were being hastily made for a funeral in Cairo and. burial at his West Bank headquarters, which would become a shrine to the icon of Palestinian nationalism.

Adding to the confusion, Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, a leading West Bank cleric, told reporters on arrival in Paris: "There is no question of switching off the equipment. It is against Islamic law which bans this type of practice? As long as there is warmth and life in his body, we cannot switch off the equipment," he said on arriving at the Percy military clinic.

"He is alive. He is ill and his condition is very bad, but he is still alive." He repeated the assertion after the visit.

"I remained at Arafat’s side for almost one hour and I asked God to relieve his suffering," Tiimimi said.

"As long as there is a manifestation of life present, from movement to temperature in the body, then he is alive," he said before entering the hospital in a Paris suburb. "I will stay next to the president praying for his recovery and for mercy."

The grand mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, said Arafat had to die naturally, telling reporters: "Even if it takes days, weeks or months, it doesn’t matter. It's not a political question.'*'

On Tuesday a series of contradictory claims about his death concluded with foreign minister Nabil Shaath affirming that Arafat was still alive though on life-support equipment, and yesterday the Palestinian representative in France Leila Shahid said there had been no change.

Arafat "is still alive and in a deep coma," Shahid told reporters at 1300 GMT.

"Like yesterday he is in a deep coma with complications in the condition of all his vital organs, so he is in a very critical state. The reality is that he is in the hands of God," she earlier told France Info radio.

LEADERS RETURN HOME

A delegation of three senior leaders -acting chief of PLO, Mahmud Abbas, prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, and speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Raweh Fattuh - returned to the West Bank from Paris early yesterday.

The Palestinian leadership will not announce Arafat's death before being officially informed by French authorities, PLO executive committee member Salah Rafat told AFP yesterday.

"There will be no statement from the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah before we are officially informed by French authorities of the death ofYasser Arafat," said Rafat.

At Arafat's battered Muqataa headquarters in the West Bank town ot Ramallah, senior Palestinian officials paved the way for his succession ana finalised plans with Israel and Egypt- for 1 "Cairo funeral and Ramallah burial.

Top Palestinian officials agreed after an urgent meeting that parliament speaker Rawhi Fattuh would serve as acting head of the Palestinian Authority in the event of Arafat's death, in accordance with the basic Palestinian law. He would likely serve as a caretaker administrator for 60 days, when new elections must be held.

EGYPT TO HOST FUNERAL

Egypt was quietly preparing yesterday to hold the eventual funeral of Arafat, with a horde of Arab leaders and international dignitaries expected to show up for the event.

The Palestinian Authority also accepted an offer from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to hold an official funeral ceremony for/Xrafat in Cairo, to be followed by burial inRamallah, as per an agreement reached with Israel.

"The PLO executive committee and the (Fatah) central committee agreed unanimously that the funeral would be in Cairo if Arafat dies and that he will be buried in Ramallah," the head of Arafat's office, Tayeb Abdelrahim, told AFP

Egyptian presidential spokesman Maged Abdul Fattah said the Cairo ceremony would be "limited in scope and restricted to officials".

The decision to hold a funeral in Egypt for Arafat, who was born in Cairo in 1929 and studied engineering at Cairo university between 1950 and 1956, was followed earlier talks between Mubarak and top Palestinian officials.

BURIAL PREPARATION

AT RAMALLAH

The Palestinian Authority and Israel were preparing for Arafat’s burial at Ramallah.

l\vo bulldozers, a mechanical digger and four heavy dump trucks were seen inside the Muqataa, clearing wrecked cars and some of the rubble strewn across the compound, an AFP correspondent reported.

Workmen were planting saplings in the courtyard, the correspondent said.

"Israel made it known to us a few minutes ago that the Israeli government agrees to a Palestinian request to bury president Arafat in the Muqataa," said negotiations minister Saeb Erakat, confirming comments from Israeli officials.

Palestinian security services would be responsible for keeping order in the West Bank town, while Israeli forces would beef up security around Ramallah, according to Israeli officials.

Arafat has always wanted to be burled in Jerusalem, the city Palestinians yearn for as the capital of their promised future state, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has steadfastly refused to countenance the idea.

Israeli political sources said ministers decided to allow Arab leaders and other foreign dignitaries free access to Ramallah but would bar Palestinian militants waging a four-year-old uprising from entering the. city. Much, of the Wit Bank is under Israeli occupation.

"This is, after all. a very extraordinary and unique funeral, and we will have to conduct ourselves like a responsible government," Israeli Deputy Internal Security Minister Yaacov Edri told Army Radio. (AFP/Reuters)