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Palestinians struggle to cope with grief

AFP, Ramallah
Scores of red-eyed Palestinians wept outside Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters on Thursday as thousands took to the streets across the West Bank and Gaza Strip to mark their leader's death.
"He was more precious to us than any other person. We lived with him, ate with him and were under siege with him in the Muqataa," said Thha al-Farrar, a member of the general security services, referring to Arafat’s compound.
"When Palestinian babies leam to speak, the first word they say is Abu Ammar," he told AFI? using Arafat's nom-de-guerre.
Women collapsed into each
other's arms, tears streaming down their faces as the city gradually awoke to the news that Arafat had finally succumbed to illness, with one wailing: "It cannot be, it cannot be!"
Downtown Ramallah quickly became a sea of black-and-white as crowds ofyoungsters, many wearing Arafat’s trademark keffiych headdress, converged on the central Manara Square.
Cars honking their horns clogged the streets as news spread like wildfire that the man who had represented the Palestinian cause for over four decades had finally passed away in a French military hospital.
"Yasser Arafat is the people, and the people cannot die," read one of
the hundreds of posters plastered to the rough-stone walls of the Muqataa, bearing the image of the man who put the Palestinian cause on the map.
"Arafat the man died today, but as a symbol for our struggle, he will live on forever," said Mariam Shuuman, an 18-year-old student who was holding an all-night vigil outside the Muqataa when thenews broke.
Plumes of black, sooty smoke billowed through the air as the sharp crackle of gunfire echoed through the streets. Across the city, businesses, shops and schools closed down as people began to observe the traditional mourning period. otherwise widely-observed fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
"The rais - gone. To heaven," managed one youth in broken English, pointing to the grainy footage ofArafat in his younger days flashing across the grimy television screen.
"We are now a very miserable people with the boss gone," the cafe's owner told AFP between dishing out cups of thick, treacly coffee and greasy portions of falafel to the growing mob of customers.
"What are we supposed to do now?" he asks as the plain live wail of • Koranic chanting cuts through the air.
Asked whether the Palestinians were strong enough to continue the struggle for a homeland without their beloved leader, one elderly bystander paused for a moment before replying: "Arafat made tlie peoplestrong, but now..."
In the Gaza Strip, the skies filled with smoke and streets echoed with mournful chantingand intermittent bursts of gunfire as hundreds of Palestinians gathered in towns and refugee camps to mourn their beloved leader.