MOST PALESTINIANS BELIEVE ISRAEL POISONED ARAFAT: POLL
Ramallah, 22 Shafar 1435/25 December 2013 (MINA) – A majority of Palestinians believe that the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, was poisoned to death by the Israeli occupation regime, a new poll says.
According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll, 59 percent of the Palestinians believe that Israeli occupation authority is responsible for Arafat’s death, AFP reported on Tuesday.
The poll was conducted by face-to-face interviews with 1,270 adults between December 19-22 in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, with a margin of error estimated at three percentage points.
Earlier this month, a team of French forensic scientists investigating the 2004 death of Arafat concluded in a leaked report that he did not die of “polonium-210 poisoning,” ALRAY Palestinian Media Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
However, a previous report by Swiss scientists said the tests on Arafat’s body showed “unexpected high activity” of polonium-210, which “moderately” supported the poisoning theory.
The scientists — from the Vaudois University Hospital Centre (CHUV) in Lausanne, Switzerland — carried out a detailed examination of Arafat’s medical records, samples taken from his remains, which were exhumed in November of last year, and items he had taken into the hospital in Paris where he died.
Many Palestinian officials believe that Israel poisoned Arafat, but the Israel has denied any involvement in the matter.
Arafat died in a French military hospital on November 11, 2004 after he was taken ill the previous month with diarrhea and vomiting.
French doctors have said he died of a massive stroke, although they were unable to find the origin of his illness.
French prosecutors opened a murder investigation in August 2012, after traces of polonium-210 were reportedly found on some of Arafat’s belongings. (T/P02/E1)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
