Doctors Say Arafat Illness Is Flu, Not Heart Attack

Yasser Arafat’s advisors said Wednesday that the 74-year-old Palestinian Authority president has been weakened by a stomach flu, and one of his doctors denied a report that he recently had suffered a mild heart attack.

In brief appearances this week, Arafat looked drawn and pale and his lower lip trembled. He spoke with great effort and with prompting from his chief advisor, Nabil abu Rudaineh. At times, he appeared to be in a daze.

The British newspaper the Guardian on Wednesday quoted Arafat aides as saying that he had a “slight heart attack” last week but that the incident was kept secret for fear of creating panic. Four doctors rushed from Jordan to Arafat’s compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sept. 29. At the time, Arafat had been unable to keep down food for three days, and Palestinian sources said he feared that he had been poisoned.

“He didn’t have a heart attack ... he had a stomach flu,” Dr. Yousef Goussous, one of the four doctors, said Wednesday.

Aides said on condition of anonymity that Arafat continued to pick at his food and required a lot of rest.

Doctors have said his lip tremors are a nervous tic, but media reports have speculated that he might suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

Arafat has been confined for nearly two years to his Ramallah compound by Israeli sieges and threats that he would not be allowed to return if he left.