Yasser Arafat, who was the President of the Palestinian National Authority and Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, died unexpectedly on 11 November 2004, 75 years of age, after a short period of illness.

[1] Following visits by other doctors, including teams from Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt, Arafat was taken to France on a French government jet, and was admitted to the Hôpital d'instruction des armées Percy in Clamart, a suburb of Paris, on 29 October 2004.

[1][2] On admission, he was experiencing diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and generalised abdominal pain, along with mild liver and kidney failure linked to disseminated intravascular coagulation.

[16][17] Medical records released in 2005 showed that Arafat's doctors could not agree on the cause of death, stating that he died from a stroke that stemmed from an unknown condition.

[18] Meanwhile, al-Kurdi called for the creation of an independent commission to carry out investigations concerning Arafat's suspicious death, stating, "any doctor would tell you that these are the symptoms of a poisoning".

[25] In his book Arafat and the Dream of Palestine: An Insider's Account, Abu Sharif wrote, "I was positive they were poisoning his food on a daily basis and doing it right under our very eyes.

"[26] In 2011, Abu Sarif alleged that an investigation conducted by "the most prominent forensic toxicology expert in the UK" had revealed that thallium was responsible for poisoning Arafat.

[24] As a result of Abu Sharif's allegations, the delegates at the August 2009 Fatah convention in Bethlehem voted for a resolution which blamed Israel for poisoning Yasser Arafat.

[28] According to Israel Radio, a former Palestinian intelligence officer, attorney Fahmi Shabana, said that Yasser Arafat's political rivals were responsible for his death, and that he was poisoned with polonium.

"[29][30] On Newsnight on UK TV on 21 January 2016, during a feature on the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinienko, George Galloway claimed to have been with Yasser Arafat in Paris when he died of polonium-210 poisoning.

Tests carried out by the Institut de Radiophysique (Institute of Radiation Physics) at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland found traces of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element, on Arafat's personal belongings, including his toothbrush, hat, surgical bouffant (headgear), and underwear, which suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.

[32][33] In October 2010, an official press release from the Institut de Radiophysique, where those items were analyzed, had stated that: "an unexplained quantity of Polonium-210 has been detected on the personal effects of Mr. Arafat.

In particular, it will be recalled that, contrary to what happened in the case of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Mr. Arafat did not lose his hair, and some of the findings in the forensic report are inconsistent with an acute radiation syndrome.

"[9] In response to Al Jazeera's report, Dr Ely Karmon, at Herzliya's Institute for Counterterrorism, a specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism, said that "the half-life of the substance [i.e., slightly more than 138 days 9 hours] would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.

[40] British forensic scientist Professor David Barclay said the Swiss team's findings were a "smoking gun", and that it was "absolutely certain" that polonium had been the cause of his death.

Vladimir Uyba, the head of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency, stated that Yasser had died of natural causes and they had no plans to conduct further tests.

[47] However an article published in a number of American news publications rejected the assertion that Arafat had AIDS, stating, "An Israeli infectious disease specialist said he would have performed the test, if only to be thorough and to refute the rumors that surrounded the case.

[50] However, Nimr Hamad, an aide to Abbas, stated that a team of experts would first be sent to Europe to learn more from the Swiss institute and from the French military hospital where Arafat died.

[57] On 9 July 2012, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas approved the exhumation of Arafat's body in response to the Al Jazeera story about polonium.

[69] Forensic biologist Nathan Lents of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice said the report's results were consistent with a possible polonium poisoning, but "There's certainly not a smoking gun here."

Derek Hill, a professor in radiological science at University College London who was not involved in the investigation, said: "I would say it's clearly not overwhelming proof, and there is a risk of contamination (of the samples), but it is a pretty strong signal.

According to Al Jazeera's source, "Russia's goal was to fulfill the Palestinian Authority's request, not offend Israel by helping the PA, and not create a new hotbed in the Middle East".

[72] In December 2013, an unidentified person leaked what were claimed to be the results of the French investigation to AFP, saying that "the report rules out the poisoning theory and goes in the sense of a natural death".

[74] On 4 December, Al Jazeera quoted Suha Arafat speaking at a press conference after having received the French report: "Is it the poisoned body that would have contaminated the environment outside?

"[78] In another document the CHUV explains "...these results do not then define the probability to which Yasser Arafat would have been poisoned by polonium, but must be integrated into the larger context of the police and legal investigations in connection to this case, and which are beyond our field of expertise".

[81] Suha Arafat told Al Jazeera that she had long suspected that her husband was murdered, noting that both Israel and the United States regarded him as an obstacle to peace.

[86] The Israeli government tried for decades to assassinate Arafat, including attempting to intercept and shoot down private aircraft and commercial airliners on which he was believed to be traveling.

However, following Israel's successful assassination in March 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of the Hamas movement, in April 2004 Sharon stated that "this commitment of mine no longer exists.

[98] Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio that killing Arafat "is definitely one of the options" under consideration by the government.

[100] Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, who specializes in espionage stories, reported that, based on his research with Dan Raviv,[101] Israel did not kill Arafat.