17 Years on: Many Think It Was Israel That Poisoned Arafat and Killed Him

ALBAWABA - The social media is brimming today about the death of Yasser Arafat 17 years after he suddenly passed away in suspicious circumstances.

The 11 November marks the day he died on that bleak year of 2004 when tension was at its peak with the extreme-right-wing Israeli government. Despite the fratricidal Palestinian politics, Yasser Arafat was an indelible figure on the heart of every Palestinian household regardless of ideologies, beliefs and factions. 

Regardless of what one thinks of the man, up till now Arafat is seen as a revolutionary leader who devoted his life to the Palestinian revolutionary struggle and would only think of a future Palestinian state. 

He died at the age of 75, in the Muqata in Ramallah. This was the place from which the Palestinian Authority, partially governed some of the Palestinian territories due to the 1993 Oslo Accord. 

Arafat had been confined to the Muqata for the last two-and-a-half years of his life. The Israeli army under the direction of prime minister Ariel Sharon had refused to let him out of the area and effectively placed him under house arrest. 

And there was much speculation as to the cause of his death. Many suspected that he didn't die of natural causes but had been poisoned. The question was by whom. It was a "cloak-and-dagger story" but nobody would own up. 

His wife Suha Arafat, 10 years after his death, confirmed that the "old man" of Palestinian politics and who lead the Palestinians and played a major role in the liberation revolutionary movement since at least the early 1960s, had been poisoned by "radioactive polonium."

This was confirmed by a Swiss Swiss team from the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne who said they had 83 percent proof he was poisoned by polonium-210 which is a deadly substance that is a product of uranium and made in nuclear reactors according to a research article published in Gulf News. 

His wife Suha Arafat believed all the time he was indeed poisoned and the Swiss team confirmed that but she didn't point the finger at anybody.

However, it was believed Israel may have poisoned him because of the worsened relations that existed between him and the Israeli government that didn't mince their words and regarded him as someone who has become "irrelevant" in the Palestinian-Israeli equation.