Egypt on Wednesday began to make preparations for a funeral service for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the event of his death, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said.
Palestinian officials insisted that their longtime leader was still alive, but many feared the comatose leader might be in the final phase of his life.
Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, a senior Palestinian Muslim cleric, flew Wednesday to Paris to visit Arafat. He told reporters later he had seen the Palestinian leader alive.
"Yes, he is sick and his condition is very difficult but he remains alive," he told reporters outside the Percy military hospital in the southwestern suburb of Paris.
The 75-year-old leader has been ill for nearly one month. He was flown to Paris via Amman, Jordan, on Oct. 29 after initial medical tests conducted at his West Bank headquarters failed to determine what was wrong with him.
Since then, his conditions have been deteriorating all the time. He firstly slipped into a deep coma and then suffered from brain hemorrhage Tuesday.
Egyptian presidential spokesman Maged Abdul Fattah told reporters Wednesday that if Arafat dies, Egypt will host a funeral service for him in Cairo.
The spokesman said the decision was made late Tuesday after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak consulted with senior Palestinian officials and his Yemeni counterpart Ali Abdallah Saleh over telephone.
Meanwhile, Egypt's leading Al-Ahram newspaper reported that Egypt, at the request of the Palestinian side, has agreed to host a funeral service for Arafat after his death is formally announced.
The Arabic-language daily said in a front page story that the Fatah Central Committee convened late Tuesday and reached an agreement on the proposal, which later gained approval of the temporary Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) adopted the proposal at a meeting on Wednesday to hold Arafat's funeral in Cairo in case of his death, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV reported.
The decision on the funeral arrangements was made by top PNA officials who met at Arafat's battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Arafat's compound, where he had been confined by Israel for nearly three years, is to be his final resting place.
An Egyptian security official said the funeral would be held at Cairo Airport when the body was flown from Paris, adding that prayers and military ceremonies would take place before the body was taken to Ramallah, via Jordan, for burial.
A security official at the airport told Xinhua that senior airport officials held a series of meetings on Wednesday morning, making contingency plans for receiving Arafat's body and holding a funeral service.
He added that the ceremony would be attended only by official representatives to make sure it will go on smoothly, indicating ordinary people might not be able to come and pay their last respect to Arafat.
Egypt's official MENA news agency said military bands were warming up for the funeral service, which is expected to be attended by Arab leaders and senior representatives from other countries.
Speaking about Arafat's funeral service in Cairo, Tarek Azzam, a professor of Political Sciences in Cairo University, told Xinhua that "I think the Egyptian government has made the right decision when it agreed to hold a funeral service for Arafat."
"The Palestinian leader is a hero for the Arab world and has lived his life like a fighter. It is totally unacceptable that he will be buried without a proper ceremony," he said.
The Cairo funeral service spares Arab leaders of attending the ceremony in the Israeli-controlled West Bank, as most Arab countries have yet to sign peace treaties with Israel.
The decision also took into consideration security concerns, given the fact that it is difficult for Palestinian security forces to maintain order in the West Bank if Arafat's funeral is held there.
Azzam said that Egypt, as a major political power in the Middle East, has enough qualifications to holding Arafat's funeral ceremony.
The country, seat of the Arab League headquarters, has been a key mediator in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the first Arab state to take such a step.
It has also offered to host inter-Palestinian dialogues and train Palestinian police officers to prepare for an expected Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank next year.
"Egypt has been acting like a leader in the Arab world, it should take the responsibility of arranging a funeral service for Arafat, which would manifest its support to the Palestinian cause," Azzam said.