Suha was born in Jerusalem on 17 July 1963 into an affluent Roman Catholic[1][2][3] family who lived in Nablus and then Ramallah (both cities under Jordanian rule at the time).
[9] Suha, growing up in Ramallah, was influenced by the political activism of her mother conducted in the 1970s from her PLO-influenced news bureau in East Jerusalem.
At age 18, she went to Paris to study, where she lived with her older sister, who was married to Ibrahim Souss, the PLO's then-ambassador to France.
[8] Soon after his departure from Paris, Arafat asked Suha to come and work with him in Tunisia (where the Palestine Liberation Organization had set up a haven).
[11] However, many Palestinians believe her conversion to be false and allege that Suha has had millions of dollars channeled into secret bank accounts by her late husband, both of which she denies.
[11][12] In November 1999 in a speech given in Ramallah in the presence of then First Lady Hillary Clinton, Suha Arafat falsely claimed that Israel was using poisonous gas on Palestinians "which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children", and that Israel had contaminated 80% of Palestinian water sources with "chemical materials".
[17] On 31 October 2011, the Tunis Court of First Instance issued an international arrest warrant for Suha, relating to corruption in a business deal that involved the former Tunisian first lady, Leila Ben Ali, in 2006.