Fatah officials charged Israel with assassinating Yasser Arafat, yet conceded they had no proof. They made the charges last week during a stormy congress of the mainstream Palestinian national movement in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Arafat died in Paris after being rushed there for emergency treatment. Israel had effectively imprisoned the longtime Palestinian leader in his headquarters in Ramallah in his final years because it held him responsible for the violence of the second intifada.

French doctors said the cause of death was undetermined but dismissed poisoning, suggesting instead it was an infection. His widow, Suha, refused an autopsy. — jta