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Some 60 heads of state and representatives attended the military funeral in Cairo
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CAIRO,
November 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Presidents, kings
and princes from across the globe bade farewell to Yasser Arafat at a
military funeral in Cairo Friday, November 12, as Palestinians
prepared to lay their veteran leader to rest in the West Bank town of
Ramallah.
A
brass band played as Arafat’s coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag,
was carried on a horse-drawn gun carriage through a tree-lined street
of Cairo followed by a huge procession of heads of state and
government ministers, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Arafat,
who symbolized the Palestinian struggle for independence for four
decades, died
at a French military hospital Thursday at the age of 75 of a
still-unidentified illness.
After
the ceremony at a military complex in Cairo, the city where Arafat was
born in 1929, his coffin was carried by members of an honor guard on
to a plane for transport to the West Bank town of Ramallah for burial.
Israel
had refused to fulfill Arafat's wish to be laid to rest in occupied
Jerusalem, the holy city that Palestinians hope one day to make the
capital of a future independent state.
Well-attended
The
funeral was the highest-profile gathering of international leaders in
the region since the funeral of former Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad
in 2000 -- representatives from at least 60 countries were present.
It
was held on the final Friday of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan and
the day Muslims across the world celebrate Al-Quds or Jerusalem Day.
But
short of the massive popular funeral the Palestinian leader might have
hoped for in his homeland, the ceremony was held in a military base
under tight security and sealed off from the public.
“Arafat
has done his duty as a defender of the Palestinian cause, with courage
and honesty,” Egypt's top Muslim scholar Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar
Mohammed Sayed Tantawi said during funeral prayers.
Among
the heads of state attending were Jordan's King Abdullah II, Lebanese
President Emile Lahoud and, despite years of frosty relations between
Damascus and the Palestinian leader, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
Arafat's
widow Suha and their daughter Zahwa joined the mourners.
The
United States, which long dismissed Arafat as an obstacle to peace,
sent Assistant Secretary of State William Burns while UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan was represented by Middle East envoy Terje
Roed-Larson.
Laid
to Rest
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Thousands of Palestinians waited for his body in Ramallah |
After
the funeral, a military helicopter carrying Arafat's coffin took off
to the West Bank town of Ramallah after the official funeral in Cairo.
Arafat's
body will be buried in the leadership compound where he spent the last
years of his life under Israeli siege.
The
coffin was transferred to the helicopter from an Egyptian cargo plane
which left from a military airport in Cairo under the gaze of world
leaders as well as the Palestinian leader's tearful widow and
daughter.
In
Ramallah, Palestinian security forces threw up a tight security cordon
as thousands of Palestinians began heading towards the West Bank city
for Arafat's burial.
Although
he is being buried in Ramallah, soil is being brought from the Old
City of Jerusalem, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third
holiest site in Islam.
Arafat
was probably the world's best known guerrilla leader almost never seen
without his trademark chequered keffiyeh, or headdress, and often
dressed in military garb.
His
death came almost 30 years to the day after he stood before the UN
General Assembly, saying he came with “an olive branch and a freedom
fighter's gun,” adding “do not let the olive branch fall from my
hand.”
Arafat
won the Nobel peace prize 10 years ago after the Oslo accords but the
peace process collapsed four years ago with the launch of the
Palestinian Intifada against Israel's long-standing occupation.
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