Political leaders in the Middle East are tonight preparing for the end of the Yasser Arafat era as confusion and crisis surrounds his condition in a Paris hospital.
Earlier, there were conflicting reports on what on the condition of the Palestinian President.
Arriving at the EU summit in Brussels, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, said Yasser Arafat had passed away. Mr Juncker subsequently retracted this statement.
A short while later a spokesman for the French military hospital where he is being treated said Mr Arafat’s condition had become more complicated but he had not died.
When told in Washington that Mr Arafat had passed away, US President George W Bush said, 'God bless his soul'.
The State Department then said it had been informed by the French authorities that Mr Arafat was in a critical but semi-conscious state.
Earlier, the French President, Jacques Chirac, visited Mr Arafat in the military hospital.
Officials earlier denied that the Palestinian President was in a coma.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said he had spoken with Mr Arafat's wife Suha, who told him her husband's condition was stable but serious.
And in Ramallah, Abdul Rahim, a senior aide, said Mr Arafat was unconscious because French doctors had to anaesthetise him to perform a spinal tap.
An unnamed spokesman in Paris had been quoted as saying the 75-year-old was in a critical condition. In Paris, a Palestinian source said that Mr Arafat had lost consciousness three times over the last 24 hours.
Mr Arafat was flown to the French capital from his compound in Ramallah in the West Bank last week.
Following the deterioration in Mr Arafat's health, an emergency meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive has been called in Mr Arafat's Ramallah headquarters.
A senior official said Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie had taken over some of Mr Arafat's powers over security and financing.
In another development, Israeli forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been placed on a state of alert.
