Arafat's first visit to Jerusalem came when his father, unable to raise seven children alone, sent him and his brother Fathi to their mother's family in the Moroccan Quarter of the Old City.

Arafat's sister Inam stated in an interview with Arafat's biographer, British historian Alan Hart, that Arafat was heavily beaten by his father for going to the Jewish quarter in Cairo and attending religious services.

In the 1940s, Arafat's father organized a group of militants in Gaza which included Yasir Arafat and his brothers.

Following Yasser Arafat's commitment to " submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval " the changes to the Charter confirming that " those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid " in the September 9, 1993 letters of mutual recognition, the PNC met in Gaza and voted on 24 April 1996.

The battle was covered in detail by Time, and Arafat's face appeared on the cover of the 13 December 1968 issue, bringing his image to the world for the first time.

This tarnished Arafat's image in many western nations, including the United States, who held him responsible for controlling Palestinian factions that belonged to the PLO.

Arafat's statements were greeted with approval by the US administration, which had long insisted on these statements as a necessary starting point for official discussions between the US and the PLO.

Many in the US also used Arafat's position as a reason to disregard his claims to being a partner for peace.

However, the inhabitants of the territories generally accepted the agreements and Arafat's promise for peace and economic well-being.

However, the Gulf Arab States — Arafat's usual source for financial backing — still refused to provide him and the PLO with any major donations because of his sympathy for Iraq during the Gulf War, in 1991.

In 1976, Abu Sa ' ed, a Palestinian traitor-agent who had been working for the Mossad for four years, was enlisted in a plot to put poison pellets that looked like grains of rice in Arafat's food.

On 6 May 2002, the Israeli government released a report, based in part on documents captured during the Israeli raid of Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, which included copies of papers signed by Arafat authorizing funding for al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades ' activities.

First reports of Arafat's treatment by his doctors for what his spokesman said was the " flu " came on 25 October 2004, after he vomited during a meeting.

However, a spokesman for the Institute of Radiation Physics stressed that the " symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not.

" On 9 July, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas approved Suha Arafat's request to exhume Arafat's body to test for abnormal amounts of polonium.

French President Jacques Chirac stood alone beside Arafat's coffin for about ten minutes in a last show of respect for Arafat, whom he hailed as " a man of courage ".

The next day, Arafat's body was flown from Paris aboard a French Air Force transport plane to Cairo, Egypt for a brief military funeral there, attended by several heads of states, prime ministers and foreign ministers.

On 10 November 2007, prior to the third anniversary of Arafat's death, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas unveiled a mausoleum for Arafat near his tomb in commemoration of him.

" Yasser Arafat's statements in Geneva a month later were accepted by the United States as sufficient to remove the ambiguities it saw in the declaration and to fulfill the longheld conditions for open dialogue with the United States.

" During a lecture in Australia, Ross suggested that the reason for the failure was Arafat's unwillingness to sign a final deal with Israel that would close the door on any of the Palestinians ' maximum demands, particularly the right of return.

Naji al-Ali a popular cartoon artist in the Arab world, loved for his defense of the ordinary people, and for his criticism of repression and despotism by both the Israeli military and Yasser Arafat's PLO, was murdered for refusing to compromise with his conscience.

First reports of Arafat's treatment by his doctors for what his spokesman said was the " flu " came on 25 October 2004, after he vomited during a meeting.

During the early 1950s, Arafat adopted the name Yasser, and in the early years of Arafat's guerrilla career, he assumed the nom de guerre of Abu Ammar.

One key allegation which emerged against the PA after Arafat's death was that over the years Arafat and Fatah officials had received billions of dollars in aid from foreign nations and organizations and had never used this money to develop Palestinian society.

Al-Kurdi, Arafat's personal physician for 18 years, said " I would usually be summoned to attend to Arafat immediately, even when all he had was a simple cold ... But when his medical situation was really deteriorating, they chose not to call me at all.

Unfortunately for Assad, Arafat's Fatah forces crept back into Lebanon over the next two years, ensconcing themselves in the many refugee camps in Beirut and the South.

However, several other sources including the Institute of Radiation Physics and The New York Times refuted that claim, insisting that Arafat's record indicated that it was highly unlikely that the cause of his death was AIDS.

Yasser Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigades claim responsibility.

Former Knesset member, peace activist and personal friend of Arafat Uri Avnery claimed at the time of Arafat's death that he had been poisoned, and has repeated the claim recently.

Among them was the leading figure of Ali Hassan Salameh, nicknamed the " Red Prince ," the wealthy, flamboyant son of an upper-class family, and commander of Force 17, Yasser Arafat's personal security squad.

Mashal attended Arafat's funeral, alongside the Saudi royal family, in Cairo on 12 November 2004.

This appointment and corruption claims against Arafat's family were partially the catalyst for intense armed conflict in the streets of Gaza between Palestinian ' militants ' of the al-Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigade group and fighters loyal to Chairman Arafat's Fatah.

The probe comes after Arafat's family launched legal action in France in July 2012 claiming that Arafat was poisoned.

In Yasser Arafat's September 9, 1993 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as part of the first Oslo accord, Arafat stated that " The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.

In July 2012 Al Jazeera reported that tests carried out by the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland as part of a nine-month investigation found traces of polonium in quantities much higher than could occur naturally on Arafat's personal belongings.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a part of Yasser Arafat's PLO organization claims the bombing as theirs.

Shabana, who took part in the investigation into Arafat's death in a French hospital in 2004, also said that several months after his death, the same cell murdered the head of military intelligence in Gaza, General Moussa Arafat, a relative of the PLO leader, in order to prevent a blood feud.

In July 2012, it was reported by Al Jazeera that tests carried out by the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland as part of a nine-month investigation found traces of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element, on Arafat's personal belongings.

The DFLP continued to cautiously support Arafat's attempts to open negotiations with Israel, but this was not uncontroversial within the membership.

'" When describing his views of the peace process among Arab leaders and in the media of the Arab world, Arafat's rhetoric became noticeably more bellicose than it was when among Western leaders and media outside of the Arab world.

Arafat's full name was Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini.

" Aburish writes that it was on Arafat's orders that Fatah remained, and that the Jordanian Army agreed to back them if heavy fighting ensued.

Arafat's top aide Abu Iyad vowed to stay neutral and opposed an alliance with Saddam ; On 17 January 1991, Abu Iyad was assassinated by the Abu Nidal Organization.

She was named Zahwa after Arafat's deceased mother.

Arafat's long personal and political survival was taken by most Western commentators as a sign of his mastery of asymmetric warfare and his skill as a tactician, given the extremely dangerous nature of politics of the Middle East and the frequency of assassinations.

Arafat's ability to adapt to new tactical and political situations was perhaps tested by the rise of the Hamas and PIJ organizations, Islamist groups espousing rejectionist policies with Israel.

In August 2002, the Israeli Military Intelligence Chief alleged that Arafat's personal wealth was in the range of USD $ 1. 3 billion.

When Arafat's death was announced, the Palestinian people went into a state of mourning, with Qur ' anic mourning prayers emitted from mosque loudspeakers throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and tires burned in the streets.

Arafat's personal doctor Ashraf al-Kurdi and aide Bassam Abu Sharif maintained that Arafat was poisoned, possibly by thallium.

In 2002, the compound was partly demolished by the Israeli Defense Forces and Arafat's building was cut off from the rest of the compound.

In his book Stateless, Salah Khalaf ( Abu Iyad ), Arafat's chief of security and a founding member of Fatah, wrote that: " Black September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential.