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Arafat arrives in Paris for treatment
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-29 20:25 A French military jet
carrying an ailing Yasser Arafat landed
Friday at an airfield outside Paris, bringing the Palestinian leader for
treatment of a mysterious illness.
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| Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat [C], is
escorted from a Jordanian military helicopter to a French hospital plane
at the Jordanian military airbase in Amman, Jordan, Friday Oct. 29. 2004.
Arafat flew to Paris for urgent treatment of a serious illness Friday,
breaking free from nearly three years of Israeli-imposed confinement at
his battered compound. [AP] |
The 75-year-old Arafat, leaving his headquarters
compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah for the first time in nearly three
years, was to be rushed by ambulance to the Hopital d'Instruction des Armees de
Percy, southwest of Paris.
The facility is a military facility with a major trauma center that also
specializes in the treatment of blood disorders, said Christian Estripeau, head
of communications for military health services.
Arafat has been sick for the past two weeks and blood tests have revealed he
has a low platelet count — a possible sympton of leukemia or other cancers or a
number of other maladies. Doctors said they need to run more tests to find the
cause.
Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, ruled out leukemia on
Thursday. However, an Arafat confidant, Dr. Ahmed Tibi, said Friday that "at
this point, no possibility has been eliminated." Tibi, an Israeli Arab
legislator, said Israeli intelligence officials have speculated that Arafat
might be suffering from leukemia and he indicated that Arafat might have some
symptoms of the disease.
The French Defense Ministry confirmed that the flight that arrived in the
afternoon was carrying Arafat.
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