GAZA CITY, 12 November 2004 — The world will bid farewell to Abu Ammar, Yasser Arafat, as one of the towering figures of Arab politics embarks on his final journey with a state funeral in Cairo today followed by a solemn burial ceremony in Ramallah.

Heads of state and government leaders from some 100 countries will be on hand in Cairo to pay tribute to the Palestinian leader who died in Paris early yesterday.

Last night the United Nations General Assembly took the rare step of paying tribute to Arafat with a minute’s silence followed by a eulogy from Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The measure was seen as a unanimous endorsement of the Palestinians’ right of self-determination by the world community.

Arafat’s passing was seen by leaders and analysts alike as the end of a chapter in the region’s history and the opening of a new one filled with uncertainties. While many voices spoke of new opportunities and new hopes, others warned of darker days ahead, especially if the Palestinians fail to quickly develop a new united leadership.

This morning, the mortal remains of Arafat, flown overnight from Paris in a French military aircraft, will pass through the streets of the Egyptian capital in a solemn cortege to King Faisal Mosque for a special memorial service. The Palestinian leader’s remains will then be flown to Jordan en route to Ramallah, in the West Bank, where he would be buried close to his Muqataa compound tomorrow.

Arafat, 75, died after almost a week in a deep coma in a French military hospital in Clamart, near Paris. A brief statement by the general commanding the hospital did not mention the cause of the death.\Palestinian officials announced 40 days of mourning for Arafat. Shortly after news of the death was announced, a wave of grief swept across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinians poured into the streets, clutching Arafat’s pictures, crying and wondering about their future without the man who embodied their struggle for statehood.

Black smoke from burning tires rose across the Gaza Strip and gunmen fired into the air in grief. Palestinian flags at Arafat’s battered compound in Ramallah were lowered to half-mast. Church bells rang out, and Qur’anic verses were played over mosque loudspeakers.

The death of Arafat, who ruled firmly over rival Palestinian factions for four decades, left Palestinians without a strong leader for the first time. It raised concern that the scramble to claim Arafat’s mantle could fragment the Palestinian leadership or spark chaos and factional fighting in the streets.

In a hurried effort to project continuity, the Palestine Liberation Organization elected former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas as its new chief, virtually ensuring that he will succeed Arafat as leader of the Palestinians, at least in the short term.

The Palestinian legislature also swore in Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh as caretaker president of the Palestinian Authority until elections can be held in 60 days, according to Palestinian law.

Saudi leaders paid tribute to Arafat and offered condolences to the Palestinian people. In a message addressed to the Palestinian leadership, King Fahd said he shared the pain of the Palestinians over the loss of their leader. Crown Prince Abdullah and Defense Minister Prince Sultan sent similar messages.

President Bush said the passing of Arafat was a “significant moment” in Palestinian history and expressed his hope that Palestinians would achieve statehood and peace with Israel. “During the period of transition that is ahead, we urge all in the region and throughout the world to join in helping make progress toward these goals and toward the ultimate goal of peace,” he said. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Arafat’s death could serve as a “historic turning point in the Middle East” and expressed his hope the Palestinians would now work to stop “terrorism”. In a sign of the enmity the two men shared even in death, Sharon refused to mention Arafat by name. French President Jacques Chirac eulogized Arafat as a “man of courage and conviction who, for 40 years, has been the incarnation of the Palestinians’ combat for recognition of their national rights.”

So intent was France to show its attachment to Arafat that his mortal remains were given a full military escort en route to the Villacoublay airport from the hospital. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier were on hand, to pay tribute to the deceased Palestinian leader.

Arafat was flown to the French military hospital on Oct. 29 after his health began deteriorating last month. It was the first time in nearly three years that he left his compound in Ramallah, where he was held a virtual prisoner by Israel.

Palestinian officials initially insisted he had a lingering case of the flu, but they grew increasingly concerned when he did not recover.

Neither his doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed him. “He closed his eyes and his big heart stopped. He left for God but he is still among this great people,” said senior Arafat aide Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who broke into tears as he announced Arafat’s death.

The Israeli military said it would restrict access to the burial, allowing only Palestinians with permits to attend, but would allow mourners to hold processions in towns and refugee camps.

As much as his life was filled with controversy, so too was Arafat’s death.

The Palestinians had demanded Arafat be buried in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Israel refused, fearing a Jerusalem burial would strengthen Palestinians’ claims to a city they envision as a capital of a future Palestinian state.

In a compromise, the Palestinians agreed to bury him at his compound in Ramallah, battered and strewn with rubble from repeated Israeli raids. But they plan to line his grave with soil taken from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, said Ahmed Ghneim, a Fatah leader, and he is to be interred in a cement box, so he can be moved to Jerusalem for burial when the opportunity presents itself.

Arafat became one of the world’s most familiar faces after addressing the UN General Assembly in New York in 1974, when he entered the chamber wearing a holster and carrying a twig. “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun,” he said. “Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.” Two decades later, he shook hands at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a peace deal that formally recognized Israel’s right to exist while granting the Palestinians limited self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The pact led to the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for Arafat, Rabin and then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

But the accord quickly unraveled amid mutual suspicions and accusations of treaty violations. A Palestinian uprising that erupted in the fall of 2000 has killed some 4,000 people, three-quarters of them Palestinians.

A resilient survivor of war with Israel, assassination attempts and a plane crash, Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa Al-Husseini on Aug. 24, 1929, the fifth of seven children of a Palestinian merchant killed in the 1948 war over Israel’s creation. There is disagreement whether he was born in Gaza or Cairo.

Educated as an engineer in Egypt, Arafat served in the Egyptian Army and then started a construction firm in Kuwait. It was there that he founded the Fatah movement, which became the core of the PLO. After the six-day Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the PLO thrust itself on the world’s front pages by sending its gunmen out to hijack airplanes, machine gun airports and kill Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics.

“As long as the world saw Palestinians as no more than refugees standing in line for UN rations, it was not likely to respect them. Now that the Palestinians carry rifles the situation has changed,” Arafat explained.