The leader of Israel’s Joint Arab List party has accused the Israeli government of murdering Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2004.
Ayman Odeh, who has been championed as a moderate and spoken about the need for Jews and Arabs to work together, said in an interview on Feb. 29 that the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service was responsible for the Palestine Liberation Organization founder’s death at age 75, the Times of Israel reported.
Odeh made the allegation during an interview on Israel’s Channel 2, saying that when Avi Dichter, now a Likud Knesset member, was head of the Shin Bet, he “sent the people” who murdered Arafat.
A panel of French judges in September closed a case pressed by Arafat’s widow that accused Israel of poisoning Arafat. The French court ruled there was “a lack of sufficient evidence.”
Arafat died in a hospital near Paris soon after falling ill in the West Bank. Traces of radioactive polonium were found on his belongings, which French experts later ruled were environmental in nature.
The medical report listed the immediate cause as a massive brain hemorrhage resulting from an infection. Doctors ruled out foul play. — jta